Captain Benjamin Church, born in Plymouth Colony of old Massachusetts, was a rousing Indian fighter. He earned his title when in 1675 the Pokanoket League of nine Indian tribes, under King Phillip the Wampanoag, took up the hatchet against the whites. Then he was called from his farm in Rhode Island Colony, to lead a company into the field. So he bade his family good-by, and set forth. He was at this time aged thirty-six, and built like a bear--short in the legs, broad in the body, and very active. He knew all the Indian ways, and had ridden back and forth through the Pokanoket.
