[7][8] Using his knowledge of English and local Algonquin dialects, Peter Jethro served as a translator and scribe for various land transactions between settlers and Native Americans in Massachusetts.
[1] In August 1675 Peter's father, Tantamous, and ten other Indians were falsely accused of committing a murder in the first Lancaster attack after allegedly falling under suspicion due to their "singing, dancing, and having much powder and many bullets and slugs hid in their baskets," but they were acquitted when the true murderer, Monoco, a Nashaway, was discovered.
[9][10] Peter Jethro later communicated with the captors of Mary Rowlandson, a captive taken during the February 1676 Lancaster raid, to obtain her release.
[12] On September 2, 1676 Richard Waldron wrote a letter to Daniel Gookin stating that he never promised amnesty for the Indians which Peter brought in, but only to let the governor know of his service if he helped the colony.
Daniel Takawombait signed a letter to John Eliot requesting that church services in the Natick Praying town continue in the Nipmuc language rather than English, and one of the signatories was "Olt Jetro,"[27] so Peter Jethro or another relative may have used his father's name after his death or may have adopted it as was the practice with other deceased Indians in that era.
[30] According to one source, "[i]n the Fall of 1688, Peter Jethro and three other Indians went on an excursion to the upper valley of the Connecticut River, the object of which is not stated.