King Ben Kokhkewaunaunt, Sachem

Main attributes of this Native American place: Archaeological; Native practices; Landmark.

 

Several leaders emerged from the Stockbridge Mohicans, including members of the Yokun and Mtohksin families. “The man who would become head sachem arrived in the 1740s and began to hold office in Stockbridge,” according to Patrick Frazier. Then in his 60s, he was Benjamin Kokhkewaunaunt, often called King Ben, father of David Naunauneekanuk, who was grandfather of John W. Quinney. King Ben was also father of Joseph Shauquethquet, also known as Joseph Pye.

 Jeffery Siemers says King Ben made newly established Indiantown, or Stockbridge, the main council fire for the diminished Mohican nation. King Ben was among Indian signatories of a deed in 1758 conveying land to Samuel Robbins and others that became the town of Richmond.

During the 1740s and 1750s, King Ben, John Konkapot and David Naunauneekanuk, in their 60s, permitted younger men to volunteer with Roger’s Rangers. They and Johannis Mtohksin, the tribe’s interpreter, watched over affairs in Indiantown.

King Ben, one of the Captain Jacobs and his son, two other Mohicans and an interpreter in 1758 traveled from Stockbridge to Upper Sheffield to share a meal with British Gen. Jeffery Amherst and inquire about some of the tribesmen re‐enlisting with the Rangers during the French & Indian War. King Ben and his wife and daughters visited again the next day, according to Frazier.

The next year, Ben and his son Nimham and others encountered Israel Williams surveying land south of Pittsfield. Ben challenged the work, and Williams said it was part of a grant. “”Very pretty,” the Indians responded, “the government pretend to give the Indians a township if they will come and settle together, and pay the claimers with the Indians’ own land,” according to records in Massachusetts Archives. They forbade further surveying.

King Ben, who lived a half mile west of the village on the plain, died in 1781, reputedly at age 104, according to D.D. Field.

His successor was Solomon Unhaunnauwaunnutt. King Solomon, who died in 1777) lived on the south side of the Housatonic River, opposite Little Hill.

SOURCES

  •   Field, David Dudley Sr., A History of the Town of Stockbridge, in A History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, in Two Parts. Pittsfield: Samuel W. Bush, 1829.

  •   Frazier, Patrick. The Mohicans of Stockbridge. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.

  •   Massachusetts Archives, 56:327‐328.

  •     Siemers, Jeffrey. Proud and Determined: A History of the Stockbridge Mohicans, 1734‐

    2014. Fond du Lac, Wisc.: Big Smokey Press, 2013.