The Montaup from Fall River

When I was growing up in Somerset, my father worked at the Montaup Electric Company. It was one of two coal-fired power plants in Somerset. Dad operated Turbine #3.

The Montaup was a fact of our family’s existence and, as children do, I never thought much about it except as the place where Dad worked. I do remember, however, the one time he took us kids inside. I was small and very impressed by the enormous space, the huge machines, and the noise.

The Montaup: An Unofficial Speed Trap

We had only one car, which Dad usually drove to work and back. When Mom or one of us kids (when we were old enough to drive) needed the car, we would pick him up or drop him off depending on which shift he was working. Thus, the Montaup was familiar to all of us and us to them. But that was a mixed blessing.

The guards at the Montaup’s gate houses on Riverside Avenue knew Dad. That meant they also knew his car and his kids. If I drove past them too fast, Dad would hear from the gate guard later on that his daughter was booking it down Riverside Avenue. And I would hear about it when he got home.

I tried to remember to slow down when driving past the Montaup but I did not always succeed.

Was Montaup an Indian Name?

The Main Door

I certainly never wondered, however, where the Montaup got its name. If pressed, I probably would have answered that it was an Indian name. I would not have known whether it was the name of a person or place or even a title.

Learning more about Boston’s history, however, has opened up areas of knowledge and sources of information that I did not have before. One thing has led to another as I learn more about both the native Americans who lived in Somerset before it was settled and the white colonists who came to occupy the area around the Taunton River.

In the process, the name Montaup appeared and that led to doing some research on it.

A Small Hill and a Pokanoket Town

It turns out that Montaup was the name of a place in the Pokanoket language. It was a village located on a small hill near today’s Bristol, Rhode Island.

The Pokanoket are a group of the Wampanoag people and the village of Montaup was governed by Ousamequin (c.1581–1661). He was the Massasoit, or chief sachem of the Pokanoket Wampanoag people. (Although early colonists mistook Massasoit for Ousamequin’s name, it is actually a hereditary title for the Great Leader, or chief of chiefs.)

From Pokanoket to English

Statue of Ousamequin (Massasoit) in Plymouth,MA

The English, as they were wont to do, anglicized Montaup into Mount Hope. At only 209 feet high, Mount Hope is far from being an actual mountain. The hill on which the village stood is, however, the highest point in Bristol County, RI, and it overlooks the part of Narragansett Bay known as Mount Hope Bay.

When the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, the Wampanoag lands included parts of Rhode Island and much of southeastern Massachusetts, including Somerset, originally known as Shawomet. Ousamequin lived in Sowams, a village in what is today Warren, RI.

As Massasoit, he held the allegiance of seven lesser Pokanoket sachems and was a very influential leader. In 1621, he sent the warrior Squanto to live among the colonists at Plymouth and began a 40-year alliance with the Pilgrim colonists.

The Selling of Sowams

In 1653, he and his eldest son Wamsutta sold Sowams to the colonists for 35 pounds sterling. The land included most of the present-day towns of Warren and Barrington, RI, along with Somerset.

King Philip’s Chair

Only one portion of Sowams was not part of the sale: a small piece called the “neck.” This meant the hill overlooking the bay and the village of Montaup, which was Ousamequin’s hometown. He intended Montaup to be reserved for the Pokanoket people until such time as they chose to leave.  Ousamequin was buried there.

In 1678, the Pokanoket people who had survived King Philip’s War fled to Maine. Mount Hope Neck was absorbed into Warren, Rhode Island.

After the deaths of Ousamequin and his eldest son Wamsutta, his second son, Metacom, now known as King Philip, made alliances with other tribes and launched hostilities against the colonists. During King Philip’s War Metacom made Montaup his base of operations. He used “King Philip’s Chair,” a rocky ledge on the hill, as a lookout site for enemy ships on Mount Hope Bay.

The Montaup: A Historic Site

Who named the power plant in Somerset the Montaup? I don’t know. Built from 1923 to 1925 and now over 100 years old, the main plant is now considered an historic building. It has been vacant since it closed in 2010.

PS: When my dad, Hervey Boucher, died, I called the office at the Montaup. We arranged for the funeral cortege to pass by the Montaup. We paused at the gatehouse and they blew the whistle in his memory.