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Comfort Bridge & The Solitude Stone

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The Solitude Stone lay undiscovered for 80 years...until a local girl went missing after one fateful canoe trip in West Bridgewater in the summer of 1916. If Evelyn Packard hadn't mysteriously died, her body not found for days, the Solitude Stone might never had been discovered at all. 1916. A missing girl vanishes from a canoe on the Town River in West Bridgewater within a half hour after she rents her canoe. The canoe is found shortly after with no clues as to her whereabouts. Her coat and a pillow are found inside the canoe "bone dry." One headline read: "Doctors Fear Girl is Crazed in Hockomock Swamp." After combing the woods for days and finding no clues as to her whereabouts, foul play is suspected. During one of grueling searches of the woods of the swamp, a local reporter decides to take a break and sits down  on nearby Comfort Bridge, a bridge that at the time was made out of three immense ancient stones. Up until of August of 1916, no

King Philip's War Synopsis

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The following is excerpted from "The History of Raynham," By Patrice White MASSASOIT WAS KING PHILIP'S DAD; WHEN HE DIED, THE WHITE MEN WERE SAD Massasoit, sachem of the Wampanoags, had established peaceful relations with the white men, and when he died, Massasoit' s sons Alexander (Indian name, Wamsutta) and Philip (Indian name Metacom or Pometacom) pledged to keep the peace. This was not easy, however, as the English and the Indians struggled for survival and land. At times Philip and his men felt humiliated by the English. The primary causes of the bloody conflict known asKing Philip's War go far back of the  outbreak of hostilities in 1675. It was undoubtedly inevitable, sooner or later. When Philip became sachem of the Wampanoags in 1662, it became evident that he was not likely to maintain the friendly relations with the English - so firmly established by his father. He was jealous of the progress of the settlers in occupation of the lands they

Middleboro: The Tragedy of the Nemaskets

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"They lodged the first night on Nemasket, where so many Indians had died a few years before that the living could not bury the dead, but their sculls and bones lied in many places where the dead had been." From "History of the Town of Middleboro," by Thomas Weston The Wampanoag lived peacefully in a territory now known as the town of Middleboro (or Middleborough) for thousands of years. When the pilgrims arrived the New World, they were mystified to find entire villages abandoned by the plagues that had decimated local tribes in the years between 1617 and 1620. In those years of pestilence, some tribes lost 90% of their people.  Middleboro was no exception. When colonists first discovered the area, the land of Middleboro was covered in skulls and bones, for there were so many that were ravaged by sickness "that the living could not bury the dead." Middleboro, or Middleborough--the town still can't decide on the correct spelling--was