The Bluff at Phillip’s Run

Peter Folger was Ben Franklin’s grandfather, and he was my great (say great ten times) grandfather.  I find him in many ways more interesting than Franklin, because of how he lived in remoteness effectively.  It guides me as I work into my rural posture.  He wasn’t the center of attention, but he had the ear’s he needed to get his message out.  He was quite effective denouncing the hanging of Quaker’s in Boston during the second half of the seventeenth century.

On Nantucket, where he settled, Folger was well known by the Nantucket Indians.  He took the time to learn their language.  They called him “white chief’s old-young man,” the idea that he was wise for his age.

The story of Phillips Run goes like this.  Metacomet, also known as King Philip, visited Nantucket before launching his King Phillip’s War to recruit the tribe there to join him.  He also had a score to settle.  Apparently a young Indian who was becoming a clergy member had broken an Indian Law.  He mentioned King’s Phillip’s deceased father’s name in public.  The punishment was death, and King Philip planed to carry this out.

Word of his arrival traveled from the tribe into the village of Nantucket quickly and only Folger responded to the plea for help.  He went to meet the King Phillip and his band of warriors.  To the warriors surprise, Folger spoke their tongue.  Folger continued to engage King Philip for nearly an hour about his demands for the clergyman head.  Finally King Philip said that only money could spare the man.  Folger then tossed a few coins to King Philip’s feet, the insult intended.  He continued to say that’s all you’ll get and you better be getting…because as we speak fifty men in arms have been circling around behind you to cut you off from your boats.  If you want to live another day, you need to leave now.

It’s said that King Philip didn’t believe Folger, but that the warriors who had listened to the entire dialouge did.  They turned and ran for the shore…King Philip had no choice but to retreat.  Today the stream in the Southeast corner of the island is called Philip’s Run.

Now that’s a bluff…