On this day, March 31, 1676 Zoeth "Zoar" Howland died, a casualty of King Philip's War

[bucolic_frolic]

Zoeth was a brother of Mayflower Pilgrim John Howland. He was basically banished from Plymouth Colony for criticizing mainstream faiths while supporting Quakers, and moved to Rhode Island and converted to the Quaker Faith. He was apparently an important member of the community, though I can no longer find reference to him as political leader of Rhode Island.

He popped up on my screen because his daughter married into one of my ancestors' family tree. If you trace genealogy to colonial America, you can bet you're related to a whole lot of people.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Howland-93

https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LJKW-RPX/zoeth-howland-1635-1676

https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-menu.php?name=21645+zoeth+howland

http://www.tivertonhistorical.org/tiverton-stories/the-spirit-of-sin-and-flesh-brook/

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.”

https://rhodetour.org/items/show/105

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 Indian 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.

Many Natives Americans who survived the war were sold into slavery. Colonial authorities shipped more than 1,000 Natives to labor on Caribbean sugar plantations. Of a total Native population of about 20,000, at least 2,000 had died as a result of battle, another 3,000 died of sickness and starvation, and thousands fled the region. The total Native population declined by 60 to 80 percent as a result of the war. Plymouth Colony lost about 8 percent of its men, compared to losses of 4 to 5 percent of American men during the Civil War.

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 that crisscross what is now called “Sin and Flesh Brook.”