In the spring of 1676, in the midst of the inter-cultural conflict known as Metacom’s Rebellion or King Philip’s War (1675-1676), the spring fishing site of Peskeompskut, at the northern edge of Pocumtuck territory, provided food and safe shelter for Native refugees who sought to escape the fighting in southern New England. Hundreds of Native people (mostly women, children and elderly) from Pocumtuck, Nipmuc, Wampanoag, Narragansett, and other communities camped at the falls while Native men were engaged in conflicts elsewhere.

In the pre-dawn stillness of May 19, 1676, the camp at Peskeompskut was attacked by 150 Englishmen led by Captain William Turner of Northampton. After English soldiers silently surrounded the wigwams, the peaceful dawn exploded into violence. Gunshots, screams, and flames filled the air as soldiers fired their muskets and set the wigwams afire. Terrified people fled through the smoke to the river where many were shot down or drowned. Over 300 Native people and one English soldier died before Native men hunting nearby rushed to the scene and routed the assailants, killing Turner and 36 others as they retreated. King Philip’s War was, by proportion of the population, the bloodiest war in American history, killing an estimated 25% of New England’s Indigenous population (roughly 5,000 people) and 30% of the English population (roughly 2,500 people). The war began in 1675, when Metacom, a Wampanoag sachem, rallied an inter-tribal strike force in response to widespread losses from European diseases and English encroachments on Native homelands. Native fighters wreaked havoc across New England, attacking and burning more than 40 English towns, forcing the English to abandon both Northfield and Deerfield in the Connecticut River Valley.

In May of 1676, after having successfully repelled attacks in Hatfield and Northampton, the English went on the offensive by attacking Peskeompskut. The fighting in southern New England ended in August 1676, after Metacom was killed at Mount Hope, Rhode Island.