Today the cave is damp, dark and lonely, except for a few rabbits and other small wild animals.
About the year 1800, Bildad Wright, son of Ephriam Wright, was earning a living and raising his family as did most of the farmers of that day by fishing, hunting, farming and working out.
The Wrights came to Hartland from Hebron about the year 1780 and bought land in East Hartland, but later sold and moved to West Hartland.
In the year of 1800 the memory of the Revolutionary War, only a little over twenty years before, was still fresh in the minds of many. The story of how Titus Hayes of North Hollow, Hartland, ground corn for Washington's army was known by all far and near, for Titus Hayes was one of the leading citizens of Hartland and was still grinding corn although he later went to Ohio when he died.
In those days and later, many of the people of Hartland were either on their way to Ohio, or were planning to leave the rocky hillsides of Hartland for the rolling prairies and deep, rich soil of "New Connecticut" beside fair Lake Erie.
Bildad Wright had three sons, Ephram, William and Orrin. Orrin married Mercy Cooke, a descendant of the famous Barkhamsted Lighthouse Tribe which lived beside the West Branch of the Farmington River a little way above Pleasant Valley. Orrin, though a chip of the old block, did not seem to inherit the energy and thrift of his father but accommodated himself to the carefree spirit of his wife. For this reason he did not like long, hard hours of toil on a rocky farm.
Instead of laboriously erecting a house for a dwelling, he took his wife to one prepared by the Lord, "not made with hands," namely, Pahke's Cave, midst the mountains and forests of West Hartland.
Here in the cave they made their home, under tons of rock so thick that the sound of rain or hail was never heard on the granite roof and no mighty winter blasts ever shook the roof-tree. Here by the dim light of a tallow candle, or maybe a torch, ten children were born to Orrin and Mercy, somewhere between the years of 1839 and 1854, as follows: Charlie, Sarah, Lucy, Jane, Mary, Horace, James, Frank, Hiram and John. John and one other died in infancy.
These children were born like foxes in their den, like woodchucks in their hole; no registrar of vital statistics recorded their birth and no minister of God baptised them. They just came and grew as foxes grow, as woodchucks are born and grow. The mother "kept the cave," like the primitive mothers of the stone age, and the father, Orrin, hunted and fished and work betimes as a day laborer.
In his cave home, made and prepared by God, he had some advantages over those living in man-made homes, for his house needed no fresh paint, the roof never needed new shingles and his home was not taxed. His children, however, were not sent to school, but seemed to be growing up as wild as foxes, so in 1854, Hoadley Miller, the first selectman of Hartland and a relative of Wilbur Miller, the present first selectman of Hartland, took the children from their parents and their cave home. Charlie died on the town. Sarah was bound out to Anson Case of North Canton and married Florence Case. (The writer has always supposed Florence was a girl's name, but in this case it was carried by a man.)
Tradition relates that all the children of Mercy and Orrin were natural musicians. Their descendants are now scattered far through Connecticut and Massachusetts. If, by chance any read this story, please write the editor more of the details of the story.
Today the cave known as Pahke's Cave in the Indian days, and in later years as Wright's Cave, is lonely and deserted. The great stone, as the story is told, that was once used to close the entrance lies untouched and bushes almost block the once frequented pathway leading to the opening.
In the days of long ago when Chief Pugnaut ruled his tribe at Burrville and Chief Wonsunkamonk at Highland Lake, Chief Qussuk ruled at Riverton and West Hartland.
Along the almost level plain at Riverton the oval wigwams of his tribe stood beside the river. On frosty autumn mornings more than twenty spirals of smoke curled upward and floated on the still air. Here the warriors fished in the river and ranged through the forests of Barkhamsted, Colebrook and Hartland for game. Here the tribal rites were celebrated in song and dance and here each fall the great corn pow-wow was held on the plain beside the river. In those ancient days the Farmington River was much larger than at the present time, as were all the streams of the State.
As the peaceful years drifted on, sometimes the spring floods carried the water and great cakes of ice over the low banks and damaged their homes. Sometimes in the summer the water was low and the children searched beneath the muddy banks for frogs and eels.
Between the wigwams and the mountain to the west were their rude gardens of corn and squash. In the autumn and the hazy days of Indian summer they feasted on the yellow corn, fat squirrels and rabbits, for this was a season of plenty - a sybmol of the Happy Hunting Ground, the indian land of hereafter,
A very apt child was Pahke and, at sixteen years of age, she knew all the songs and dances of the tribe, knew how to pound and bake corn, knew how to dress the soft skins of the deer, fox, coon and beaver, knew how to make the most dainty moccasins and how to paddle her canoe over the water swiftly and safely. She could bend a low bow and send the arrow swift and true, or spear a fish in mid air as it leaped from the water.
She knew the woods and hills nearby better than the tribe's best trackers and hunters, knew in what hollow tree to look for the coons' hideaways - where the rabbits had their holes, where the grey squirrels hid their acorns and walnuts. And, moreover, across the river in a low, rocky hillside was a special secret, a cave that she had found when following a wounded rabbit. The entrance was not noticeable until one was right in front of it, for it was shielded by the trunk of a large tree, as well as a great rock in the shape of a flat block. The entrance was very small, not more than two feet square, but, inside, the cave was hollowed out like a gourd so that in the center one could stand erect. The extreme depth of the cave was about sixteen feet and the width almost twelve feet.
In the fall of her sixteenth year, the wild geese flew south earlier than usual. The fur coats of the deer, fox, squirrel and mink were thick and heavy. The frosts came early, before all the corn was ripe. The hazy Indian summer was all too short and then came the cold and snow, with fierce winds and great grey clouds that dimmed the mid-day sun and shut out the glittering stars at night.
The river was ice-bound with a covering so thick in the still stretches of water that the crude stone axes could not chop through. Almost all the game of the forests vanished so that the most skillful hunters returned empty handed and starvation seemed only a few weeks ahead, as the small corn supply was low.
Qussuk called his braves in solemn council and it was decided that he should lead all his followers able to make the journey to the Shining Big-Sea Water (Long Island Sound) far to the south and there to search for quahaugs (clams) along the shore at low tide. The old men, the women and children, under the guidance of Pahke, to get on as best they could with now and then a fish, or squirrel and a little corn, or even roots from under the snow and twigs from small trees.
So early one morning in single file, with snowshoes on their feet, baskets for the quahaugs on their arms and bow and arrow in hand, disappeared through the snowy, cold and lonely forest toward the south.
Days passed and the smoke curled less and less from the wigwams beside the river. The cold continued. Hunger grew more and more intense. Hunger, too, found the great grey wolves of the Northland and they ranged south in search of food, until they found the almost unprotected Indian village one night when the moon was full and the ice cracked with cold on the river. Ravenously they howled about the wigwams until, finding a weak place in one, they broke through and with savage growls devoured two shrieking women.
Then all seemed lost, but Pahke, knowing the wolves' fear of fire and remembering the cave with its narrow entrance, set her father's wigwam on fire. As it blazed up the wolves retreated beyond the circle of light. Then, coming forth, Pahke called to the others to bring such wood as they could and, with torches in the hands of all, she led such as were able to make their way across the icy river and through the snow up the rugged hillside to her cave.
When all were inside the cave, Pahke knelt at the low entrance and with the torches and wood built a small fire. Through the long hours of the night she knelt there and tended it carefully while the lean and hungry wolves watched and waited, their eyes reflecting the feeble grow of the fire until the eastern sky grew red with the coming dawn and the wolves silently slunk away into the shadows of the gloomy forest.
All day Pahke and her little band huddled in the smoke-filled cave, for they had brought a little wood for fire. Water was brought from the river in baskets coated with ice so they would not leak. Thus the day passed midst hunger fear and cold.
When the night closed down with clouds and wind, the hungry wolves returned, again howling and whining before the cave entrance, but feared the fire light until another day dawned with dark clouds sweeping across the sky. Then came blinding gusts of snow. Water could be had from the river only with great difficulty, but food - O the terrible gnawing hunger! Here and there among the group was one after another who spoke not and moved not. What could be done?
In the morning Pahke had gone down to the river with her basket and spear. All day she watched a little open space where the water circled around a rock. She watched with spear in hand, tense, weary, but, at last, as the day began to fade, a fish swam slowly into view. With steady hand and arm she cast the spear and did not fail.
As Pahke returned to the cave, all who were able to speak called for a bite of the fish, but Pahke said: "No, we shall not eat this fish, but one of the wolves will try to."
Then she unfolded her plan. Several of the strongest went out with her. A small, slender tree not far from the cave was bent down, a braided rope was fastened to the main part near the top of the tree and a slip-noose was made at the other end. The base of the noose was fastened to a projection on the side of a rock. The the fish was tied aroudn the gills and to the base of the noose, so that a pull on the fish would loosen the noose from the rock and the tree spring back to a standing position.
The wolves were howling as Pahke and her helpers crept back to the cave. Soon one, coming up in advance of the others, smelled the fish, sprang forward and seized it, only to be caught in the noose and swung high out of reach of the other wolves.
In the morning when the sun rose and the pack went back into the forest, Pahke and her helpers drew the wolf down and there was food for all.
For three successive nights, but with wolf meat for bait, the same plan worked and Pahke and her band were saved from starvation. On the fourth morning, when the wintry sun was high in the heavens, Qussuk and his braves emerged from the forest with baskets of clams. When they saw the empty and deserted group of wigwams and that of their chief destroyed by fire their alarm was great. There, too, in the snow they saw tracks of wolves and they feared the worst. Looking across the river and up on a hillside, Qussuk saw the smoke of a tiny fire. Then they all saw Pahke coming down to the far bend of the river, crying "Welcome." The starving time was over.
And so the lonely, rocky cave on Hartland's forest-clad hillside has been known to the present day as Pahke's Cave and the story of this brave Indian girl has been told on cold, stormy winter nights before the open fireplace of many a cabin home.
In the December issue of the Lure the story of "Pahke's Cave, the Home of Orrin Wright," was related as told by the late David Gaines of East Hartland. Since that time Harold Thorne reports a number of groups have visited the ancient and historic cave.
On October 24, 1941, the Clearview School from Harwinton with their teacher, Florene B. Smith, visited the cave and with them was Mrs. Elnora Snow of West Hartland. Mrs. Snow is the daughter of John Hoadley Miller who was first selectman in Hartland in 1854 when he took the children from Pahke's Cave. Mrs. Snow related the story of the taking of the children of Orrin Wright from Pahke's Cave as it had been told her. "On the very day my father was elected first selectman as per final count of the votes late in the evening, the other two selectmen urged my father to get Orrin Wright's children from the Cave at once. My father hesitated, but they finally persuaded him that he should act immediately, so, without going to his onw home, he drove with his horse and business wagon over to West Hartland and as near the Cave as possible, though almost a half a mile away. He then followed the narrow trail to the Cave and as First Selectman informed Mr. and Mrs. Wright that the children must go with him as they were receiving no schooling and were receiving very poor care in such a hole. Mr. and Mrs. Wright very sorrowfully gave up the ten children and Mr. Miller took them to his home.
Now Mr. Miller had but recently been married and in addition he had not consulted his wife before he went after the children, so when he arrived with the ten, long after dark, he had two very serious problems on his hands - his wife and the ten children.
Finally the children were quartered in the attic for the night. What to feed them was another problem but mush and milk solved this.
In the morning John, one of the children, was gone and Mr. Miller was not to be found. After breakfast of mush and milk, Mrs. Miller decided, with her mother, to take the horse and wagon and spend the day at Hartland Fair, for Hartland had a fair of its own each year in those days. The day passed very pleasantly, but when they were ready to go home, their horse and wagon was missing. After a very long wait Mr. Miller appeared with the horse and wagon saying he had spent the day finding homes for the children and that all but one was placed out."
Some of these children are still living as successful as others who had better opportunities when children.
The water, as storms sweep the lonely hillside, has washed dirt and rubbish into the Cave so the room inside is not as large as it was one hundred years ago when Pahke and her tribe his in its depths from the hungry wolves.
Orrin Wright and his wife found the cave a lonely home with the children gone and were soon persuaded to move into a house "made with hands."