Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds
Dorothy Hersey, Register 
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Title - Native American Deeds
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Introduction Narrative
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  NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE IN ESSEX COUNTY
image of birch bark canoe
Historic Saugus,
a 60-page coloring book

Teaching American History Grant Lesson Plan Saugus Iron Works Site

The First People of Cape Ann, Elizabeth Waugh, Dogtown Books, Gloucester Mass. (2005). This book focuses on a description of Native people as understood through pre historic artifacts, hundreds to thousands of years old as found in the ground.

Coffin Stream Assemblage, websites that highlight artifacts found in West Newbury along the banks of the Merrimack river:
www.davistownmuseum.org/infoCoffinStream.html and http://www.davistownmuseum.org/PDFsforInventory/WebInfoCoffinStream_PDF.pdf

The Plimoth Plantation website,
an interesting guide for teachers

The Library of Congress offers interesting materials for teachers called “Using Primary Sources in the Classroom”


 


Any early description of Native American Culture has to be European since there was no written history by the Native Americans only lore passed through generations. There is no dispute however regarding the migratory patterns of the Native Americans as they pursued the bountiful food sources in the cycle of the seasons. There is little dispute about the adaptations and advancements made through the thousands of years of habitation from Paleo to the Woodland archeological periods. Evolving from a hunter/gathering society to hunting, fishing and agricultural society using primitive materials and seed-saving techniques suggests a change in environments over time.

Several terrific references have been found regarding these Native lifestyles including the making of tools, hunting and trapping, fishing, land clearing and planting. Hard copy descriptions are found in C. Keith Wilbur’s illustrative books, Indian Handcrafts and Woodland Indians and they are excellent teaching references. Similarly, the Pequot Museum has wonderful on line descriptions of Native American lifeways in the 17th century. Four other references were found while researching this project that help describe the culture for our region.