In 1623 tidings reached Plymouth that Massasoit was sick and likely to die. Edward Winslow was therefore sent to visit him a second time. With him went a young English gentleman who was wintering at Plymouth and who desired much to see the country. His name was John Hampden, a name destined to become famous wherever the English language was spoken. The great John Hampden was born in 1594. He would have been twenty-nine years old at this time. He had as yet done nothing whatever to make himself famous and was a comparatively inconspicuous man, notwithstanding the prominent position his family had held for centuries in England. There is no record of his presence in England at this time. Like Oliver Cromwell he may have been considering a residence in America among men of his own religious faith, and for this reason may have made a preliminary visit to this country. Green, discussing in his “History of the English People” Cromwell’s scheme for emigrating to America, says: “It is more certain that John Hampden purchased a tract of land on the Narragansett.” Most important of all, the name of John Hampden appears in the list of the Charter Members of the Colony of Connecticut. As long as he lived Massasoit remained the firm friend of the colonists. Upon his death, in 1662, his son Wamsutta (or Alexander) headed the Wampanoag tribe for a year, and then came Philip, Massasoit’s second son. Philip was a foe to the white men, made such by English treatment of his tribe. He was one of the ablest Indian leaders this country has produced, a wonderful organizer, a skillful diplomatist. From tribe to tribe he journeyed, inducing them to rest from their interminable wars and to turn their weapons against the common enemy of all. But for an accident which caused hostilities to begin a little while before the year (1676) Philip had fixed upon, the colonists would have been swept from the land. The war began in 1675, and Capt. Benjamin Church, the conqueror of Philip, wrote an account of it. Benjamin Church was one of our greatest “Indian fighters.” He had lain in their wigwams, he had studied their character. Naturally and inevitably he came at last to the leadership of the colonial forces. When Philip’s plans had all come to naught, the Wampanoag sachem came back to Mt. Hope, to make his last stand and to die. Death came to him from a bullet fired by one of his own men who had taken service in Capt. Church’s company. In 1876, on the two hundredth anniversary of his death, the Rhode Island Historical Society, with appropriate ceremonies, placed a boulder monument on the top of Mt. Hope, with this inscription: KING PHILIP, AUGUST 12, 1676. O. S. Beside Cold Spring on the west side of the hill a massive block of granite records that IN THE MIERY SWAMP 166 FEET W. S. W. FROM THIS SPRING, ACCORDING TO TRADITION, KING PHILIP FELL, AUGUST 12, 1676. O. S.