It was another day just wandering around looking for some good trails to explore when I came across the Weetamoo Woods. Strange name, I thought, as I wandered in. As it turns out this gorgeous scenery came with a gruesome and perhaps entirely regrettable historical narrative.

I had no idea this was somewhere that was tainted with the blood spilled during the King Philip’s War. More so I had never heard the name Weetamoo before. As it turns out she was a woman chef of the Pocasset tribe. She led several hundred men in her own army during King Philip’s War against the colonists. And King Philip – he was her brother-in-law during her third marriage (of five.) Her leadership was largely unrecognized by the white settlers because of her being a woman but she fought valiantly in her short life. Unfortunately, she was eventually cornered by the colonists during King Philip’s War, drowned, and her corpse defiled. They brought her head to be displayed to the public on a pike in Taunton Massachusetts. And her children who had been caught alive? Sold into slavery. Most of this story was narrated on a plaque at the entrance.

Dark. Morbid. And wholly unjustified. No wonder they don’t teach us about what really happened in those early years of our nation during our schooling. It’s much more comforting to just go on believing in the Thanksgiving Story. Everyone being nice to each other…

I was struck by this story. This woman was a force in her own right, and she had followed her heart, led her people, and fought with everything she had. And now I was here, near where she died, just casually ambling through a patch of woods we’ve named after her. I was humbled.

Since I was alone on this particular day and lacking someone with a sense of direction, I decided to stay on the yellow path which cut straight through the forest before ending some ways out. Although I could still hear traffic for quite a while these woods seemed more remote than they were. A few big, gnarled trees took on an appropriately creepy vibe. Most people don’t realize that the trees in these parts used to be huge I mean with trunks you could wrap several people around in a hug – the sort of thing we normally only think of existing in the Redwood Forest on the opposite coast of our country. White settlers cut pretty much every last one of them down. I’ve yet to see any evidence of a tree older than these times but before the settlers trees were so big because they were allowed to grow for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. Everything you see today is new growth. Trees that began their life after everything else was cut down.

I pondered how different these woods must have looked then during Weetamoo’s life in the mid 1600’s. Were they scary? Perhaps even haunted? I couldn’t blame them if they were. I made sure to talk to the trees a bit and thank them for such a beautiful trail. Whether you believe someone is listening or not doesn’t matter. It never hurts to be kind in these situations. Kind and grateful.

I wasn’t the only out on this day. Lots of people had come with their dogs and they were passing me like no one’s business as I struggled to keep going. My body has not been happy with my recent attempts at getting back into shape and was pitching a fit as it usually does – overheating and stabbing me in the side with sharp pains. I stopped several times to sit on rocks and eventually turned around before finding the end of the trail because by then it was getting dark and I didn’t want to be stuck in the woods with no sweater or jacket for the night. Especially in woods with such a gruesome history. No… I have my limits.

That being said I really enjoyed this trail. It was pretty wet at parts, but it was gorgeous and easy to hike. And all the people with their sweet little dogs? Bonus. Definitely a puppy bonus.