Roger Clap Memorial

In June 1630, Roger Clap and the Dorchester men went up the Charles River until it grew narrow and shallow and landed their goods with much labor and toil on a steep bank. As night came on, they were told that three hundred Indians were nearby, and an Englishman who could speak the Indian language, an old planter, went to them and advised them not to come near in the night, and they did not. In the morning, some of the Indians stood at a distance looking at them, and after a time some held out a great bass toward them, so a man was sent with a biscuit and exchanged the cake for the bass. After only a few days there, though they had diligently made a kind of shelter to protect their goods, they were ordered to leave that place near Watertown and go to Mattapan, now Dorchester, because it had a neck of land fit for keeping their cattle.

Watertown, Massachusetts · United States