Pynchon in the "news"

[Erik T. Burns]

 Pullquote: Pynchon, according to Nolumbeka Project President David Brule,
was a “wheeler-dealer and an entrepreneur. He was a fast talker, and
capable of all kinds of duplicity.”

River Stories: How colonist John Pynchon acquired Deerfield and environs
By MAX MARCUS
Staff Writer
Published: 12/6/2020 8:41:38 PM

GREENFIELD — The last installment of the Nolumbeka Project’s series, “River
Stories 2020: Recovering Indigenous Voices in the Connecticut River
Valley,” on Nov. 29, focused on the suspicious transactions that allowed
Massachusetts to incorporate the land stretching from present-day Deerfield
to Leverett, Sunderland and Montague.

In 1633, a Massachusetts court recruited John Pynchon to help settle a land
dispute involving groups of colonists and Native Americans. Pynchon’s job
would be to acquire, somehow, a large tract of land in the river valley,
which was to be legally reapportioned.

The land was identified to be 12 miles north of Hadley — present-day
Deerfield.

Pynchon, according to Nolumbeka Project President David Brule, was a
“wheeler-dealer and an entrepreneur. He was a fast talker, and capable of
all kinds of duplicity.”

Among his business interests were cideries, and his customers seemed to
fall into debt to him frequently. Sarah Pirtle, an educator who spoke
during Sunday’s panel, said that, by the time of Pynchon’s death, about
one-third of the people in the Deerfield area were in debt to him, and
about half worked for him.

Doug Harris, a ceremonial stone landscape preservationist, said, “The
wealth that Pynchon acquired — did he do so by good debt, or bad?”

Within a year of the 1633 court order, a diplomatic mission from a Mohawk
group of the Hudson Valley to a Pocumtuk group of the Connecticut River
Valley fell through. All parties had expected to strike a peace deal. But,
while meeting in a Pocumtuk fort, in present-day Deerfield, the Mohawk
ambassador was unexpectedly assassinated.

Historians now know that agents of Pynchon were at the meeting, Brule said.

“We feel that Pynchon had a hand in this,” he said.

In the political fallout, many Pocumtuk people fled the area. On their way
out, many evidently signed deeds, granting the land they were vacating to
Pynchon.

These deeds don’t hold up under legal scrutiny; in almost all cases, the
signers had no right to the land, Brule said. But, effectively, Pynchon had
gained control.

The last major holdout against his acquisition was a woman named
Mashalisque. She had hereditary stewardship of land on both sides of the
Connecticut River, running from Deerfield as far north as Montague.

But Pynchon eventually got that land, too. Over the course of about seven
years, Mashalisque’s son became entangled with Pynchon, and sank into debt
to him. In 1672, Mashalisque struck a deal with Pynchon to transfer her
land to him in exchange for clearing her son’s debt.
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https://www.gazettenet.com/Nolumbeka-Project-panel-discusses-incorporation-of-Franklin-County-towns-37566620
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