Spirit of Metichawon
Descriptions of a place called Metichawon intrigued me and the more I researched the more convinced I became that it was once, long ago, a place possessing great mojo. It's located in present-day New Milford and Bridgewater, Connecticut where the Housatonic River formerly tumbled over a falls, passed through a steep-walled gorge, and then entered a large cove where migrating fish and eels once gathered in great numbers. The Native American name "Metichawon" is said to mean "obstruction and fishing place". A stately hill overlooks the falls, gorge, and cove (opening photo). Native Americans had long reaped nature's bounty at this special place and, once Europeans became aware of the plentiful fishing, a trading house was built around 1644 on an island in the cove...almost 60 years before the area would be permanently settled by Europeans. In the early 1700s the regional sachem of the Potatuck tribes, Waramaug, maintained a residence at Metichawon. I