Clan Tour

William Colquhoun (Cahoon/Calhoun/Calhoon/Cahoone/Cohoon/Colhoun, etc.)

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If you are one of these name variations and trace your heritage to New England in the 17th Century, then William Colquhoun is probably your relative.

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If you trace back to Ireland or some other place and period, you might not be related. It has been estimated that well over half of the Cahoons [and most variations] in America are related to William. What do we know about him? Where is he from and what was his parentage? How did he get from Scotland to America and what did he do once he got there?

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William Colquhoun - Parentage

Along with the Colquhoun Clan sites, I will be including information about William Colquhoun (Cahoon) believed to be the first Colquhoun in America. 

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There is much confusion as to exactly who William was and where, when and to whom he was born. However, to my knowledge, there is no record in existence that confirms the birth date, place and/or parentage of William. It is believed that he was born in the 1630s, with 1635 being the most common year, but the dates vary from 1631-1637.
 
Possibilities of where he was born includes areas around Dumbartonshire Scotland. Some have suggested that he was born in Luss, a small village in Scotland, perhaps because it is the ancestral home of the Colquhoun Clan.  Others say Tullichewan, which is in the same general area and also in Dumbartonshire. While another has him born in East Lothian, an area east of Edinburgh that stretches beyond Dunbar.

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The former clan [CCIS] historian wrote a paper that essentially dismissed any connection between the William Cahoon [Colquhoun] of the 1650-Americas and the “Royal” Colquhouns or the clan chiefs and their families. This statement has been repeated by officials and volunteers of the clan [CCIS]. While that may be true, there are still many unknowns about William’s parentage – thus I feel a better answer for right now is, we don’t know. I have expressed that the clan should not tout this dismissal claim too loudly since a majority of their membership probably traces their roots to that William they disregard.

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The most common parentage claims for William include, John Colquhoun and Lilias Graham as well as Alexander Colquhoun and Marion Stirling. However, the evidence, or lack of, suggests that neither of these Colquhouns are the parents of William.

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It is generally accepted that John Colquhoun born about 1596 is the eldest son of Alexander Colquhoun (born 1573), Lord (Laird) of Luss and Margaret Helen Buchanan born about 1576. John succeeded to his father's title as Laird of Luss in 1617. In 1620 John Colquhoun married Lady Lilias Graham (Lady Montrose). Lilias' parents were John Graham (Earl of Montrose) and Lady Margaret Ruthven. The six children of John and Lilias is found in various records and does not contain a William.

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The second claim is that William was the son of Alexander Colquhoun (born about 1600, died June 18, 1632), and Marion Stirling (born about 1613, Edinburgh). They were and married Sept. 1631, at Canongate, Edinburgh. However, Sir William Fraser, the Colquhoun Clan historian states that there was only one child of that marriage, Jean Colquhoun, who was baptized in 1632. Apparently, the daughter pre-deceased her father and Fraser records that Alexander left no issue. there were no baptismal registers kept in Dumbartonshire until 1666, some thirty years later. Luss Registers did not commence until 1698.  The Book of Dumbartonshire states; “Alexander, who died without issue, his nephew, Sir John being served heir to him in certain tenements in the burgh of Dumbarton.” Records claiming descent from Alexander and Marion, including a son John and a son William. These additional boys claim to be born between 1632 and 1635. The difficulty with these claims lies with the death of Alexander June 1632, 10 months after his marriage in September, 1631. There is a Colquhoun record of one child (Jean) being conceived prior to his death but no other children.

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The third, and what some believe to be the mostly likely possibility for William's parentage, is that he was the son of Sir John Colquhoun and Lady Katherine Graham. This hypothesis is outlined in detail in a paper titled, Who Was William Cahoon? AN EXAMINATION INTO THE PARENTAGE OF WILLIAM CAHOON by Gary D. Calder.

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While we may not be certain of exactly who William's parents are or exactly where he was born, we do have some information about how he got to America and his history after he arrived.
 
Of course, not knowing for sure William’s parents leaves many unanswered questions about his early life. If he was the son of Sir John and Lady Katherine he may have lived in London while his parents were in exile. If so, at age 15-17, he could have traveled to join the Royalist army in Southern Scotland outside of Edinburgh for what would be known as the Battle of Dunbar. This battle and what we know about William’s journey to and life in the “new world” follows.
 
The Battle of Dunbar

In January, 1649, Oliver Cromwell’s anti-Royalist forces executed King Charles I of England in London. Until that time, Scotland had sided with Cromwell in the English Civil War. But the king had been born in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, and his murder dismayed his northern countrymen, who later that year defied the English Commonwealth by proclaiming as king his son, Charles II. War was on…

 

Some estimates put Scotland’s army at less than 6,000 regular soldiers in June 1650. Although that number was swiftly raised to 22,000 by enlisting short-term levies. If those numbers are correct, then by the time the battle took place they lost almost half. No matter the actual number, David Leslie knew they would not be well-trained enough to match their English counterparts in open battle. Instead, he planned to draw Cromwell to Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, and force the English to storm his well-fortified army. Between the city of Leith on the coast and Edinburgh, he built a network of entrenchments and fortifications. He also burned all crops and supplies between Edinburgh and the border, forcing Cromwell to rely on provisions from England. On July 22, the English crossed the border and were astounded by the devastation. One officer, Lieutenant John Hodgson, wrote that ‘though Scotland hath been often compared to a wilderness, yet it was never so like one as then.”

 

Incentives to join the Scots in the war were lacking for young men like William. Taken from the family field or others means to support his parents was trading a difficult life for a much harder and uncertain one only to fight for a king he had never seen. We do know where the compulsory enrollment of many of the soldiers took place in Scotland. None of the records show any near the Colquhoun lands, that doesn’t mean there were none, just none recorded. Again, since we don’t know William Colquhoun’s parentage, we don’t know what area he may have been living in 1650.

 

As Cromwell led his army over the border at Berwick-upon-Tweed in July 1650, the Scottish general, Sir David Leslie, continued his deliberate strategy of avoiding any direct confrontation with the enemy. His army was no longer formed of the battle-hardened veterans of the Thirty Years' War who had taken the field for the Scots at the Newburn and the Marston Moor. Many of them had perished during the Civil War and the ill-fated 1648 invasion of England. Far more had left active service after the former event, some even leaving for Swedish or French service. This meant that a new army had to be raised and trained by the remaining veterans. It was believed by Cromwell, that the Scots had an army of 22,000, but a more accurate number comprised of about 12,500 soldiers which included 3,000 on horse, slightly outnumbering the whittled down English army of 11,000 that included 3,500 mounted on war horses. Though the Scots were well armed, the pressure of time meant they were poorly trained compared with their English counterparts, most of whom had served with Oliver Cromwell for years. As a result, general Leslie chose to barricade his troops behind strong defensive works around Edinburgh and refused to be drawn out to meet the English in open battle. Furthermore, the scorched earth policy by the Scots forced Cromwell to obtain all of his supplies from England, most arriving by sea through the port at Dunbar, but contrary winds frequently delayed the ships."

 

"Whether in a genuine attempt to avoid prolonging the conflict or whether because of the difficult circumstances he found himself in, Cromwell sought to persuade the Scots to accept the English point of view. Claiming that it was the King and the Scottish clergy who were his enemies rather than the Scottish people, he wrote to the General Assembly of the Kirk on August 3rd famously pleading, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." This plea, however, fell on deaf ears."

 

"By early September, the English army, weakened by illness and demoralized by lack of success, began to withdraw towards its supply base at Dunbar. Leslie, believing that the English army was retreating, ordered his army to advance in pursuit. The Scots reached Dunbar first and Leslie positioned his troops on Doon Hill South East of Dunbar on the eastern edge of the Lammermuir Hills, overlooking the town and the Berwick Road, which was Cromwell's land route back to England." You can find complete coverage in detail of the brief battle here. (Essential Agony: The Battle of Dunbar 1650 by Arran Johnston, 2019)

 

To sum up the battle, "Before sunrise, on September 3, 1650, Cromwell's army soundly defeated General Leslie in less than an hour by what he thought was divine providence." The victory was a great success for the English.

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Prisoner of War – march south to Durham. 

When the short and decisive battle was over, the reported number of Scots killed range anywhere from 300-5,000 with some suggesting 2,000 common Scots soldiers slain. Cromwell claimed an exaggerated 3,000 Scots killed and 10,000 prisoners. Modern calculations suggest that an estimated 6,000-6,500 were captured with about 1,000 sick, elderly, wounded and camp followers released to go home. It is estimated that the remaining 5,500 undernourished and battle worn prisoners, including William, were marched south down somewhat along the seacoast to Durham, via Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Cromwell reported that only 20 of his soldiers were killed. However, his report again exaggerated like his numbers on Scots killed and captured. Others say 40 were lost and even Cromwell wrote the same day that 30 were killed. Maybe that other 10 came after more soldiers died that day. What is not reported is how many of the English soldiers were severely wounded.

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Instead of counter-attacking, General David Leslie prudently fled with the skeleton of his once-mighty army to easily defended Stirling, the gateway to the Highlands. He left Edinburgh undefended and open to a triumphant Oliver Cromwell. The victorious British Army took possession of the city on September 7, 1650, four days after Dunbar, but the Scottish garrison in Edinburgh Castle above the city held out until December.

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A much different fate awaited the Scottish prisoners, who began the brutal 100+ mile march south to the English cathedral city of Durham. In the hours that followed the battle, Cromwell put his Newcastle commander Sir Arthur Haselrigge, a member of Parliament for Leicester, in charge of the prisoners. Exact prisoner numbers withstanding, the Scots were swiftly defeated in a  cold September. Young William, untried in war, had just survived a battle in which defeat was not contemplated. Already hungry and stripped of any weapons, the boys and men began their march early September 4th on a muddy rutted path south-east.

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Day One to Berwick- upon-Tweed (26 miles)

It is hard to imagine seeing the procession of hungry, ragged, prisoners that stretched over five miles long. They first were marched south from Dunbar toward the English border, following the approximate route of today’s Highway A1. For many of these young men, the panorama of Berwickshire’s wide rolling hills, with the North Sea off to the east, was the last ever saw of Scotland. The prisoners finally arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed, 26 miles to the south, well after dark that night. Scots escaped in droves along the road to Berwick and their English captors offered those recaptured no mercy, killing dozens of the unarmed escapees." Berwick changed hands no less than fourteen times during the England/Scotland border wars. It became a forward operating base for which ever kingdom held it at the time adding fortifications along the way. Some of the prisoners may have been housed in the medieval castle or herded near the Palace Green.

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Day Two to Belford (16 miles)

Escapers must have known that there could not have been a sustained pursuit by the guards since they had neither the time or numbers to chase them. But many of the prisoners were not in any shape to even try – hungry, cold, ill and exhausted. Belford’s history starts as far back as 1272 with much involvement in the border wars with Scotland but the village only really came into its own in the mid-18th-Century. However, there were a number of English troops there to watch overnight and help move the starving prisoners out the following morning.

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Day Three to Alnwick (16 miles)

The name Alnwick comes from the Old English wic ('dairy farm, settlement') and the name of the river Aln. While there had been a castle there for over 600 years when the Scottish POWs arrived, it is probable that they were kept inside the walls, within the outer wards. They were still denied water or food.

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Day Four to Morpeth (20 miles)

On day four the unkempt Scots shuffled into Morpeth, Northumberland where they were quartered in a farmer’s large walled cabbage field near the surviving castle of Hepscott Park. Many had gone without food for several days, thanks to a Scottish soldierly habit of fasting for a day or two before a major battle to sharpen the reflexes. At Morpeth, "they ate up raw cabbages, leaves and roots," Haselrigge wrote in a letter to Parliament. "So many, as the very seed and labor at four-pence a day was valued at nine pounds. They poisoned their bodies. As they were coming from thence to Newcastle, some died by the wayside." By the dozens, then the hundreds as uncontrolled dysentery and typhoid fever swept through the Scottish ranks.

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Day Five to Newcastle-upon-Tyne (14.5 miles)

Then on to St. Nicholas’ Church in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. The English foot soldiers and cavalrymen escorting the prisoners had little food, eating mainly Scottish supplies captured from Leslie’s baggage train. There was virtually nothing to feed the Scots. Civilians along the route occasionally risked English vengeance and tossed them bread or whatever else could be spared, which wasn’t much after a summer of fighting in the area. The prisoners quenched their thirst from puddles of rainwater and filthy ditches. They began dying -- first from wounds, then from sickness, and later starvation."

Six years earlier in 1644, Newcastle had taken a pounding from Scottish guns and mines and the town suffered in the aftermath. It was just three years before the Scottish POW’s came stumbling into town that the town had been occupied again. It goes without saying, they were not welcome there.

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At Newcastle, Haselrigge had them put into "the greatest church in town" -- St. Nicholas’ Church -- for the night. More prisoners died among the pews, and 500 others were unable to continue the march the following morning.

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Also, Day Five to Chester-Le-Street (11 miles)

As they passed through Chester-Le-Street, William might have seen the 14th century Lumley Castle on the hill. (My wife and I stayed in the Lumley hotel/castle on our visit a few years ago.)

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Day Six to Durham (8 miles)

The last agonizing stretch took those who could still walk from Newcastle down to Chester-Le-Street and into Durham, was done in short stages leaving a trail of dying men and corpses stiffening in the early fall frost along the side of the road. Approximately 1,500-1,700 prisoners were lost during the march. Some escaped, but most died of disease, dysentery, or wounds while some were undoubtedly executed by their captors while attempting to flee back to Scotland.

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Prisoner in the Durham Cathedral

Today Durham may be seen as a beautiful, serene, island of unchanging tranquility and holiness. But in 1650 it was different – ragged, partly abandoned, place protected by three sides by water with an abandoned great cathedral. On one of our visits, we stayed in what is now the Durham Marriott Hotel Royal County. Some believe that Cromwell might have stayed at the hotel on this site on his way to the battle of Dunbar. The current hotel was created out of four buildings, ranging in date from the early 18th century to the later 19th century. The staircase dates back to the time of the mid-17th century and was brought in from Loch Leven Castle.

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Late in the afternoon of September 11, about 3,000 surviving Scots arrived from Newcastle, they likely crossed the River Wear over the 12th century Framwellgate Bridge - that still stands today beneath Durham Castle. In 1650 the castle was already almost 600 years old.

 

The prisoners were shuffled into Durham Cathedral, a magnificent Norman structure on the site of an abbey originally built by monks around 997 to house the body of Saint Cuthbert. Constructed by Catholics and taken over by Anglicans during the era of Henry VIII, the cathedral fell on hard times a century later because of religious ferment between Puritans and Presbyterians on both sides of the border. Even before the civil wars, the region was regularly raided by the quarrelsome border clans. A Scottish army occupied the city in 1640 and held it for two years. The Scots confiscated money from the church to feed their troops. When the gold and silver coins were slow in coming, the Scots broke into the cathedral, smashing its priceless font and cathedral organ to pieces as a warning. Ten years later, when the defeated Scots of Leslie’s army were herded into the cathedral, they were given no fuel and little food. "I wrote to the mayor (of Durham) and desired him to take care that they wanted for nothing that was fit for prisoners," Sir Arthur Haselrigge, later insisted. "I also sent them a daily supply of bread from Newcastle . . . but their bodies being infected, the flux (dysentery) increased." Haselrigge proudly told his fellow members of parliament back in London that his cathedral prisoners were provided with "pottage made with oatmeal, beef and cabbage -- a full quart at a meal for every prisoner." He also told how his officers set up a hospital for the sick and wounded in the adjoining Bishop’s [Durham] Castle, where patients were stuffed with "very good mutton broth, and sometimes veal broth, and beef and mutton boiled together. I confidently say that there was never the like of such care taken for any such number of prisoners in England."

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That may have been what Haselrigge, who was safely holed-up in Newcastle, thought was happening in Durham. However, his rank-and-file English guards down south were getting rich quick by getting away with murder. Tons of supplies coming in from Newcastle and "60 towns and places" in the Durham area were being stolen by the cathedral guards. Some of the food was sold to the prisoners for whatever money or personal jewelry they had managed to retain. Most of the prisoners’ rations went at cut-rate prices to merchants and grocers in the area. There is general agreement among British historians that Haselrigge did his best for the prisoners, and had no real idea of what was actually going on. The harsh reality is that very little of the food ever found its way into Scottish stomachs. "Notwithstanding all of this, many of them died -- and few of any other disease than the flux," a perplexed Haselrigge wrote. "Some were killed by themselves, for they were exceedingly cruel one towards the other. If any man was perceived to have any money, he was killed before morning and robbed. If any had good clothes that (a prisoner) wanted, he would strangle the other and put on his clothes. They were so unruly, sluttish and nasty that it is not to be believed. They acted like beasts rather than men." No wonder. The prisoners were dying at an average rate of 30 a day in the cathedral. That rate probably hit 100 or more daily by the middle of October, as starvation and murder set in and the dysentery infection rate peaked. It is amazing that young William Colquhoun survived – because the majority did not.

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Sir Arthur Haselrigge, writing from Newcastle, insisted that his prisoners were getting an ample supply of coal to warm them as winter drew closer -- at least that’s what the men in charge of the cathedral were telling him. "They had coals daily brought to them, as many as made about 100 fires both night and day. And straw to lie on." But it appears the coal, like the food, was ending up everywhere except inside Durham Cathedral. Simply to stay alive, the Scots burned every sliver of wood in the church -- the pews, the altar, anything that would keep them warm, regardless of religious significance. There are burn marks within the Cathedral stone walls that are thought to be fires created by the prisoners.

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Strangely, the only combustible object that survived was Prior Castel’s Clock, installed in the cathedral in the early 1500s under the great Te Deum Window. It was made primarily of wood, and running perfectly the following spring when most of the surviving Scots were shipped out to the New World as indentured slaves. The one-handed clock may have been left intact because of the decorative Scotch Thistle carved into the top of its wooden casing. It currently runs to this day in Durham Cathedral, its face divided into 48 segments to measure the day in quarters of an hour rather than the much more familiar 60-minute format. However, there is evidence that the clock survived because it was removed before the prisoners arrived and returned to the cathedral after they left.

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For years it has been suggested that the prisoners took the opportunity to revenge themselves on the tombs of the Neville family, beheading their effigies and most of the statuary in the Cathedral. Lord Ralph Neville had commanded part of the English army which had defeated the Scots at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346 on the outskirts of Durham City. But they had none of the types of hard objects to do such damage and it was probably done years earlier when other Scots were kept in the Cathedral. These particular prisoners were mostly just trying to survive amidst the horrible conditions.

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By the end of October 1650, approximately 1,600 Scots had died horrible deaths in Durham’s much-revered House of God. Only 1,400 of the 5,100 men who started the march from Dunbar in September were still alive less than two months later, when England’s traders in human flesh came calling. Nine hundred of those survivors, including William, went to the New World, Massachusetts and after 1652 some officers might have been sent to the Barbados colony in the Caribbean. Many of the sick who had survived were forced to drain the Fens in Norfolk. Ironically, another 500 were indentured the following spring to Marshall Turenne for service in the French army, and were still fighting seven years later against the Spanish, side by side with a contingent of English soldiers sent over by Cromwell.

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Some of the 1,600 bodies of those who died were buried in a mass grave in the form of a trench running northwards from the Cathedral. The location of their remains was then forgotten for almost three centuries until rediscovered by workmen in 1946. There is no permanent memorial to these soldiers and it is suggested that they had received neither Christian burial nor blessing. Their story was briefly told in the Cathedral guidebook. In 1993 the Cathedral approved in principle a request by the Scottish Covenanters' Memorials Association to erect a suitable memorial or plaque. A campaign properly to respect and remember the 'Dunbar Martyrs' was launched at the end of 2007, aiming at least to gain a Christian blessing for the dead and an adequate memorial at the burial site or even possible exhumation of the remains for reburial in Scotland. At the end of November 2011, St Andrew's Day, a memorial plaque was dedicated in the cathedral. The DURHAM MARTYR PLAQUE at Durham Cathedral. It was located in the Chapel of the Nine Altars on the floor to the left of the St. Margaret.

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Two years later, on a cold and wet November day in 2013, while digging the foundation for a new café. Construction was halted when they found skeletons within the dig. Over the next two years, researchers pieced together the puzzle of who these people were. Today we know them to be some of the Scottish prisoners who died in horrible circumstances while kept in the Durham Cathedral. The discoveries from research on the skeleton remains allows us to better understand those prisoners. The plaque mentioned above has now been replaced with a new plaque in 2017 that reflects those they found.

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We happened to be in Durham in May 2018 as they were setting up for an exhibit at the Palace Green Library, adjacent to the burial site. It was entitled Bodies of Evidence: How science unearthed Durham’s dark secret, and they allowed us to see a pre-view which included a placard at the end on William Colquhoun. The exhibit allowed visitors to see original objects from the period—including armor, weapons, and portraits—alongside accounts of the scientific methods used in archaeology to investigate skeletons. All documented in a book, Lost Lives, New Voices: Unlocking the Stories of the Scottish Soldiers at the Battle of Dunbar 1650.

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The remains of 17th Century Scottish prisoners of war were reinterred at the Elvet Hill Road Cemetery in Durham. Between 17 and 29 skeletons were reburied in a ceremony on a beautiful day in May 2018 about a week before we arrived. Detailed information about the discovery and what it meant can be found in the Lost Lives book mentioned above.

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For more information about Scottish POWs from this time, click here:

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Indentured Servant shipped to new England

"Not what they want but what is good for them." Oliver Cromwell

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In early November 1650, the Council ordered Sir Arthur Haselrig, the governor at Newcastle, to deliver 150 prisoners from Dunbar to the agents of John Becx and Joshua Foote, two of the principal investors in the Company of Undertakers, bound for the Saugus, other ironworks and sawmills in New England. They left by sea from Newcastle to London. The prisoners, including William, were sold for £5 (others say  £30) each. On November 11, 1650, they set sail for Boston, Massachusetts from Gravesend [East of London] on the ship Unity under Augustine Walker of Charlestown. They were sold to work in sawmills or ironwork's as indentured servants.

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The Unity arrived in Charlestown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, in mid-December, a remarkably quick voyage for that time of year. The number of Scots who survived the voyage is unknown, as are most of their names. We do know that William was one of those that survived the journey. They were taken from the ship to the Charleston Square. Of the 150 men who left London, however, the Company of Undertakers kept sixty-two for ironworks operations. William Colquhoun, after arriving in New England apparently used the phonetically spelling for his last name and became known as Cahoon. 

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Thirty-six prisoners went to Saugus/Hammersmith, and seventeen worked for manager William Aubrey in the company’s Boston warehouse. The remaining nine, including William, intended for the ironworks were sent to the Braintree forge (now known as Quincy) and Taunton, Massachusetts. If William was sold to James Leonard, then it would explain all the sites he worked, and perhaps started with Leonard at Saugus for a short time before moving to the Braintree/Quincy site where he was at until 1660. The site of the iron works in Quincy is located on Crescent Street in West Quincy, next to St. Mary’s Church and Hall Cemetery. While at this site, it is probable that William lived near the Blue Hill, to the west of Braintree in an area still known as Scotchman’s Woods.

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William moved to the Taunton iron works site located on Route 104 in what is now Raynham, about a mile from the Taunton border on Route 104 in 1661. He possibly learned the brick making trade from James Leonard since brick making is an essential part of building forges.

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The latest research (Lost Lives, New Voices: Unlocking the Stories of the Scottish Soldiers at the Battle of Dunbar 1650) has William listed as a probable Dunbar prisoner since there is no know record of the prisoners on the Unity. 

Free Man

It is not known how long William worked at the Anchor Forge Leonard Iron Works in Taunton.

In 1658, the government of Massachusetts colony granted four men to start a settlement on Block Island – called New Shoreham. It was decided they would place the island for sale at a price of 400 pounds and a Dr. Alcock got a committee together to purchase the island. Thus, in August of 1660, Alcock and eleven men from Braintree purchased the island. The island was divided into 34 equal lots of which 33 were sold and one was designated for a church. One of those buyers was Thomas Terry who purchased lots 4 and 5. That same committee organized the building of a shallop (a small two-masked open boat) at Braintree, Massachusetts to transport the settlers. Apparently, William worked on the construction of the boat in 1660.

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In early 1661, William Edwards and Samuel Staples were assigned to sail the shallop for Braintree down the Neponset River to Quincy Bay and out through Massachusetts Bay and then around Cape Cod through Nantucket Sound to Newport, Rhode Island. Then they sailed up Narragansett Bay past Mount Hope and through Mount Hope Bay to the Taunton River up to Taunton. The settlers had been gathering and probably left on the shallop in the spring on 1662 to New Shoreham, a part of the Plymouth Colony at the time. This group included William Cahoon and five other indenture servants, including other Scots, to work the land of their owners. They landed in Cow’s Cove, named after cows jumped ship and swam ashore. There is a plaque on Settler’s Rock with the names of those who first arrived.

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William gained his freedom because On January 13, 1662/3 he purchased 40 acres of land from Thomas Terry – part of lot 5. This land was on the crossway that divided Block Island. On May 4, 1664, Block Island was admitted to the Colony of Rhode Island, and at the same time all white males on the island who were not freed yet received their freedom.

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William moved from Block Island to Newport, Rhode Island by 1665 as he was listed as serving on a Newport grand jury in that year. William may have next moved to area of Sowams which now comprises of the towns of Barrington, Bristol, East Providence, Providence, Rehoboth, Seekonk, Swansea, and Warren.

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Marriage and Family

Some believed William married a Deliverance [Peck] while others list his wife’s name as Mary. He and his wife had at least 7 children. His first three children probably born in Newport or Block Island and the last three in Swansea. Samuel or John Calvin (1665-1704), William Cahoon Jr. (1665-1702), Joseph Cahoon (1669-1715), John Cahoon (latter Capt. John Cahoon) (1672-1781), James Cahoon (1674-1747), and Nathaniel Cahoon (1674-1731). There is some indication William may have had other children that died young including Mary Cahoon (b. 1664), Archibald (b.1665), and Angus (b.1667).

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He was probably near the Sowams area from 1665 to 1669/70 when he moved to Swansea, Plymouth Colony, which had been established as a town in 1667. The move took place before February 1669, when his name appears on the charter between the townsmen of Swansea and the proprietors. Swansea records show William Cahoon as signing as an inhabitant in agreement with the “Ch. Of Christ” in 1668/9.

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On February 7, 1670, he was listed again, as a freeman, and permanent third-rank resident of Swansea. Then on the November 13, 1670, he sold 38 acres of land, “30 acres in the great lott, and eight acres in the neck or plannting field” on Block Island to Samuel Hagbourne.

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William continued to do well and had a division of lands in 1670 and 1671.  Later, William found a parcel of land 300 yards south of the Rehoboth Road bridge over the Warren (Sowams) River and on the west shore of the river. He next got permission from the townsmen of Swansea to use the land for his brickmaking operation. At a meeting of the Swansea townsmen on December 24, 1673, William Cahoon was designated the town brick maker. The record, which includes two different spellings of William’s surname, reads:

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“William Cohoun brickmaker that for and in consideration of a lot and other accommodations or grantes and given him from the town unto him the said William Cohoun. It was therefore agreed and concluded upon by the parties above as that the said William Cahoun shall supply all the inhabitants of the town with bricks at a price not exceeding twenty shillings a thousand in current pay putting between man and man."

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It is believed that one or more of William’s bricks can be found at the Luther's Museum in Swansea, MA. - Home to the Swansea Historical Society and located at the intersection of Old Warren Road, Pearse Road and Maple Avenue.

Coordinates of the museum are: 41°44′41″N 71°13′25″W

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Killed by Wampanoag Native Americans

William seemed to have become a successful man at Swansea. He had several parcels of land around and in the town of Swansea.

In 1675, war broke out between the Native Americans and the colonists at Swansea. Relations between the native inhabitants and English settlers in the colonies had been deteriorating for some years. This war is known in American history as King Philip’s war and William Cahoon was among the first casualties of the war.

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While Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag had tried to maintain friendly relations with the colonists ever since the English colonial settlement in Plymouth in 1621, tensions grew over the succeeding years with the English pushing ever farther onto Indian lands. After Massasoit’s death in 1661, his sons Wamsutta and Metacom (also known as Philip or King Philip) determined to resist further encroachment. Philip was successful in organizing a confederation of his Wampanoag and most other tribes in New England. In June of 1675, three Wampanoags were executed by the English, which enraged the tribe. In retaliation, Indians attacked settlers in Swansea, the beginning of the war.

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On June 22, 1675, a Saturday (some suggest June 24) the residents of Swansea attended religious services. As they returned home, they were attacked by Indians; several of the colonists were killed and others seriously wounded. The survivors, including William and Deliverance and their seven children, gathered in the home of Reverend John Miles. The wounded needed medical help. William and another man volunteered to go to the neighboring town of Rehoboth and return with a doctor, and the two men left that evening.

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William was ambushed near the Palmer River Churchyard cemetery on Lake Street in Rehoboth. He was killed and mutilated. Parts of his body were discovered the next day by three men; Thomas Savage, James Oliver and Thomas Brattle, who were sent from Boston, in hopes of negotiating a peace with the Indians. One description given when they were found, “their bodies were miserably mangled and their heads stuck upon poles.” William's remains were found near what is now the corner of Lake Street and Wheeler Street, less than a mile from the cemetery and they were not returned home until two days after his death. If his remains were interred in the Palmer cemetery there is no record of it. There is also some supposition that his butchered body may have been buried near his home. What we do know is found in the records of Swansea that state, “William Cohun [Lohun] was buried 24th of June 1675.” We just don’t know exactly where the burial took place.

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The grounds of the Palmer River Cemetery contain many relatives of William's wife Deliverance Peck. Peck was a prolific name in Massachusetts during this period. Also buried here, in unmarked graves, are other men slain at the onset of The King Philip's War. So, it might be possible that he is buried in this same cemetery.

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William Cahoon died at about age forty-two, leaving his wife with their young children to care for in the midst of war between the colonists and the Indian confederation. This attack was the beginning of the war which saw almost every building in Swansea burned to the ground.

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The site of the Miles house, known as the Miles Garrison House, is located at the west end of Miles Bridge in Swansea, just south of the Swansea/Rehoboth line, and just north of where William Cahoon’s residence and brick works would have been located. The Miles Bridge crosses the Palmer River. A bronze plaque set in a granite boulder was erected at the site in 1912 and lists the names of the eleven colonists who died at Swansea, including the name of “William Cahoone.” The plaque is inscribed as follows:

"MILES GARRISON HOUSE SITE NEAR THIS SPOT STOOD THE JOHN MYLES GARRISON HOUSE THE PLACE OF MEETING OF THE TROOPS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY AND PLYMOUTH CONOUES COMMANDED BY MAJORS THOMAS SAVAGE AND JAMES CUDWORTH WHO MARCHED TO THE RELIEF OF SWANSEA AT THE OPENING OF KING PHILIP'S WAR A.D. 1675 THERE FELL AT SWANSEA, SLAIN BY THE INDIANS NEHEMIAH ALLEN WILLIAM CAHOONE GERSHOM COBB JOHN DRUCE JOHN FALL WILLIAM HAMONS JOHN JONES ROBERT JONES ROBERT LEWIS JOHN SALISBURY WILLIAM SALISBURY TO MARK THIS HISTORIC SITE THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS A. D. 1912."

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King Philip’s War continued for about a year following the attack at Swansea. The war involved a series of Indian raids on settlements in Connecticut and Massachusetts, followed by retaliatory assaults by colonial militia on Indian villages. The natives prevailed until the spring of 1676, when with the destruction of their crops they faced the prospect of starvation. By the end of the war in August of 1676, when King Philip died, approximately 600 colonists and 3000 natives had perished. More than half of the 90 settlements in the region had been attacked; entire Indian villages were destroyed and the tribes were decimated. With continued resistance from the natives, English settlers eventually occupied all of southern New England.

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William Cahoon experienced wars, hardships and opportunities during his forty-two years, as a youth in Scotland, as a prisoner of war, an indentured servant, and as the first Cahoon in America and a freeman in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

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There were funds raised over 20 years ago from family member to create and erect a bronze plaque that was to be mounted on a boulder near the Swansea Luther Museum. The plaque was created but sits in the organizer’s closet in Massachusetts. The inscription does read as follows:

_____________________________________________________________

“Near this spot stood

The Cahoon Brickworks

from 1673-1675,

founded and operated by

William Cahoone (Colquhoun)

of Luss, Scotland, and Swansea, Massachusetts.

____

-taken prisoner in Dunbar, Scotland, during the Cromwellian Wars (1650)

-shipped as indentured servant to Braintree, Massachusetts (1651)

-freeman at Block Island, Rhode Island (1664)

-one of founders of Swansea, Massachusetts (1669)

-killed by Indians on eve of King Philip's War while striving to get a doctor for the wounded of Swansea (June 24, 1675)

____

Presented by his descendants, June 24, 2000”

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After his death, it is believed that William’s wife left with small children and later married Caleb Lumbert of Barnstable. In 1681, Joseph Kent and Caleb Lumbert were appointed guardians over Joseph Cahoon, one of William’s sons who would have been about 12.

 

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William Cahoon Google Map TOUR

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Here is map/virtual tour of William Colquhoun’s (Cahoon) life from what we know using Google Earth project. 

If you are new to Google Earth, the link will request you load the app if you are on mobile device or if on a computer/browser it will just come up in a web page. To get started on the tour you click the play button titled “Present” and it will bring up the first site. You can tap through the photos/videos related to that site and/or scroll down and read the background history. To go to the next site, you click the “>” next to the 1/29. Click here to get started ->

 

Here is the link to:

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To better understand what William went through I have included WDYTYA video clips in 3 parts. It tells the story of actor Jon Cryer as he searches for his ancestry and finds out that his ancestor, James Adams, was a part of the Scottish Battle of Dunbar marched to Durham and eventually sent to New England on the Unity. It goes to reason that they knew each other somewhere along the journey and probably had similar experiences.

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William Colquhoun (Cahoon) 1 of 3 https://tinyurl.com/wjt8z5xc

William Colquhoun (Cahoon) 2 of 3: https://tinyurl.com/uxwc2juu

William Colquhoun (Cahoon) 3 of 3: https://tinyurl.com/dc5dbs74

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