The Magunkaquog community was one of seven original “Praying Towns” established by missionary John Eliot in Massachusetts Bay. Recognized in 1669, Magunkaquog was a gathering place for Nipmuc people until Harvard’s purchase of the land in 1715. Seventeenth and early eighteenth-century documents identify several Native people who were associated with Magunkaquog, including Isaac Nehemiah, who committed suicide the day after Harvard’s takeover. These individuals and their families become difficult to trace after 1715 when the community was “dissolved” and associations with Magunkaquog are harder to find in the documentary record. Senior Archaeologist Holly Herbster will discuss how Magunkaquog’s history was carried forward, and how collaborative research with Nipmuc descendants is giving this history a future.

Holly Herbster is a senior archaeologist/principal investigator with The Public Archaeology Lab, PAL, a cultural resource management firm in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where, among other responsibilities, she is responsible for the supervision of all phases of archaeological fieldwork in New England and the Northeast. Her research focus includes documentary and ethno-historic studies and she has collaborated extensively with Native American groups in Massachusetts.