1637 – “About this time, Thomas Stanton, who could speak the Indian language so well that he often acted as an interpreter for the colonies, arrived in a vessel at Saybrook. While waiting at the fort for a fair wind, a few Indians were seen to come down one day to a hill within musket range of the palisades, and hide themselves behind the trees. Gardiner ordered that the cannon should be pointed at the place where they lurked, and fired off when he waved his hat. Three of the savages soon rose and cautiously advanced towards the fort under pretense of a parley. Gardiner, willing, perhaps, to amuse his guest, walked out with him a little way, that they might come within speaking distance of the Indians. When the Englishmen had reached the stump of a large tree they stopped. “Who are you?” asked the Indians. Stanton, replying to them in their own language, said, “That is the Lieutenant,” and added that his own name was Thomas Stanton. The Indians replied, “It is false; we saw the Lieutenant the other day shot full of arrows.” But as soon as Gardiner spoke they saw their mistake, for one of the Indians knew him well. They then cunningly asked, “Will you fight with the Nihanticks? The Nihanticks are your friends, and we have come to trade with you.” “We do not know one Indian from another,” replied Stanton, “and we will trade with none of them.” “Have you had fighting enough?” asked the Indians. “We do not know yet,” returned the interpreter. “Is it your custom to kill women and children?” rejoined the other party to the dialogue. “That you shall see hereafter.”

A long pause ensued, when one of the Indians said, with a haughty air, “We are Pequots; and have killed Englishmen, and can kill them as mosquitoes: and we will go to Connecticut and kill men, women, and children, and carry away the horses, cows, and hogs.” Gardiner then replied with that good-natured irony so common to him, “No, no; if you kill all the English there, it will do you no good. English women are lazy and can’t do your work. The horses and cows will spoil your corn-fields. The hogs will root up your clam banks. You will be completely undone. But look here at our fort. Here are twenty pieces of trucking© cloth and hoes and hatchets; you had better kill us and get these things, before you trouble yourselves to go up to Connecticut.”2

1637 – [Fairfield swamp- the Pequot refugees were hiding there, the warriors with their women and children, and the English  had them surrounded. After a skirmish that was  furious, the Fairfield Indians begged for quarter, saying that they were only there by accident] “Thomas Stanton, who knew their language, was sent into the swamp to offer life to all the Indians who had shed no English blood. When the Sachem of the Fairfield Indians learned the terms proposed by Stanton, he came out of the swamp followed by little parties of men, women, and children. He and his Indians, he said, had shed no English blood. But the Pequot warriors, made up of choice men, and burning with rage against the enemy who had destroyed their tribe and driven them from their old haunts, fought with such desperate bravery, that the English were glad to confine themselves to the border of the swamp.”3

1639 – [sale of Quinnepiack lands] “…November, Theopolis Eaton, Mr. Davenport, and other gentlemen, made a contract with Mo-mau-gu-in in reference to a sale of lands. A very interesting document it is, being in the nature both of a deed of sale of Quinnipiack and a league or solemn treaty, offensive and defensive; the chief covenanting neither to terrify, disturb, nor injure the English, who in return agreed to protect the chief and his tribe, and see that they had lands on the east side of the harbor both for hunting and tillage. The celebrated Thomas Stanton interpreted the indenture, and it was executed with the usual formalities. On the 11th of December following, the same gentlemen bought another large tract of land lying northerly of the former purchase. This second piece of land was ten miles wide from north to south, and thirteen miles in length from east to west. It was deeded to them by Mon-to-we-se, son of the great sachem of Mat-ta-be-seck. It was a valuable territory, and has since been divided into the towns of New Haven, Branford, Wallingford, East Haven, Woodbridge, Cheshire, and North Haven.”4

1649 – “The perfidy of the Narragansett and [eastern] Nihantick Indians could not long remain quiet. These Indians were resolved not to pay the wampum that they had agreed…to do, and hired the Pocomtocks and Mohawks to unite with them in exterminating the hated Mohegans. The Narragansetts and [eastern] Nihanticks secreted their women and children in swamps, and raised an army of eight hundred warriors, who were to meet their allies, the Mohawks and Pocomtocks, in or near Mohegan country. The governor and council sent a deputation, at the head of whom was Thomas Stanton, to Pocomtock. When they arrived there they found the Indians of the place in arms and awaiting the arrival of the Mohawks. The Indians confessed their error, but said they had been hired by the Narragansetts. It was represented to Stanton, that the Mohawks had four hundred guns, and plenty of ammunition. This must have been a very exaggerated account of their resources. It is not likely that the whole tribe were possessed of one-fourth part that number of guns. Stanton told the Indians that they must not march into Mohegan territory, and that the English would defend Uncas against all his enemies, and would avenge all his wrongs. This well-timed threat had the effect to keep the Pocomtocks at home, and and the Mohawks [if indeed they had ever intended to aid in the enterprise,] were detained in their own country by some troubles they had with the French, the Narragansetts dared not take it upon themselves to chastise the Mohegans, and so the affair was dropped for a while.”5

1649 – “As early as 1649, William Chesebrough, of Rehoboth, commenced a settlement upon a tract of land lying between the Mistick and Pawcatuck rivers. Thomas Stanton, the interpreter, also, about the same time went there, and was the first Englishman who settled upon the bank of the Pawcatuck. He did not remove his family to the place until sometime after he had been himself established there as a trader with the Indians. This tract was called Pequot, and was considered as a part of New London.”6

“On the Pawkatuck River, the first white inhabitant was Thomas Stanton. His trading establishment was probably coeval with the farming operation of [William] Chesebrough, but as a fixed resident, with a fireside and family, he was later upon the ground. He himself appears to have been always on the wing, yet always within call. As interpreter to the colony, wherever a court, a conference or a treaty was to be held, or a sale made, in which the Indians were a party, he was required to be present. Never, perhaps, did te acquisition of a barbarous language give to a man such immediate wide-spread and lasting importance. From the year 1636, when he was Winthrop’s interpreter with the Nahantick sachem, to 1670, when Uncas visited him to write his will, his name is connected with almost every Indian Transaction on record.

In February, 1649-50, the General Court gave permission to Stanton to erect a trading-house at Pawkatuck and to have ‘six acres of planting ground, and liberty of feed and mowing according to his present occasions:’ adding to these grants a monopoly of the Indian trade of the river for three years. These privileges probably induced him to bring his family to Pequot, where he established himself in 1651 and continued to reside, taking part in the various business of the town, until he sold out to George Tongue in 1656. His first town grant at Pawkatuck was in March, 1652-three hundred acres in quantity, laid out in a square upon the river, next to his grant from the Court. The whole of Pawkatuck Neck and the Hommocks [i.e., small islands] that lay near to it were subsequently given him. Other farms were also granted on the Pawkatuck, in the neighborhood of Stanton; and April 4th, 1653, a liberal7 grant was made to Mr. Winthrop of the water-course of the river with liberty to erect dams and mills on any part of it or any of its branches, and to cut timber on any common land near it, together with a landing-place, and a clause of general privilege annexed, viz. "Liberty to dig up and make use of any Iron-stone or other stone or earth in any place within the land of this town."8

Read more about Thomas Stanton's history.

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