Old Home Day
1638 - Town of Hampton - 1962
Hampton Indian Artifacts
Their fires are out from hill and shore!
No more for them the wild deer bounds,
The plough is on their hunting grounds.
The paleman's axe rings through their woods,
The paleman's sail skims o'er their floods."
"Winnicunnet, Winnacunnet, Winneconet, Wennecunnet, Wennecumet" -- all are the spellings of the name first given to our town -- Hampton "The Beautiful Place of Pines" -- by the first settlers, the Indians.
Just as the correct Indian spelling of the name of our town is lost in the musty pages of local history, so is the history and story of the Indian, his culture, and way of life lost in the annals of Hampton.
Just as historians and students are trying to determine the correct spelling, so are archeologists, professional and amateur, trying to discover, piece together, and explain the story of the Hampton Indian.
The late Carl H. Bragg of High Street, Hampton, spent many years collecting the remains of the Hampton Indian period. The entire collection numbers over 200 pieces. This collection is on display in the new addition to the Tuck Museum. Among the collection one will find Indian arrow heads, hatchets, fishing sinkers and weights, awls, and other tools of the local Indian life. Mr. Bragg assembled these artifacts during the late forties and early fifties from "diggins" here in Hampton on his High Street property and on marshland farms in nearby Hampton Falls.
The Hampton Indian probably was of the Abenaki Tribe. He was NOT a savage but a semi-nomadic hunter, trapper, and fisherman who wintered in the deep woods of the northern part of New Hampshire and spent his Spring and Summer here on the marshlands, and sandy beaches of our town's shores. Here he tended his fishing nets, dug clams and other sea mussels, planted his corn, and prepared for the long cold New England winter.
The Carl Bragg Hampton Indian Collection will be on display from 10:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M.