1704-1740.
DEERFIELD.
Hertel de Rouville.--A Frontier Village.--Rev. John Williams.--The
Surprise.--Defence of the Stebbins House.--Attempted Rescue.--The Meadow
Fight.--The Captives.--The Northward March.--Mrs. Williams killed.--The
Minister's Journey.--Kindness of Canadians.--A Stubborn Heretic.--Eunice
Williams.--Converted Captives.--John Sheldon's Mission.--Exchange of
Prisoners.--An English Squaw.--The Gill Family.
About midwinter the governor of Canada sent another large war-party
against the New England border. The object of attack was an unoffending
hamlet, that from its position could never be a menace to the French,
and the destruction of which could profit them nothing. The aim of the
enterprise was not military, but political. "I have sent no war-party
towards Albany," writes Vaudreuil, "because we must do nothing that
might cause a rupture between us and the Iroquois; but we must keep
things astir in the direction of Boston, or else the Abenakis will
declare for the English." In short, the object was fully to commit these
savages to hostility against New England, and convince them at the same
time that the French would back their quarrel.[53]
The party consisted, according to French accounts, of fifty Canadians
and two hundred Abenakis and Caughnawagas,--the latter of whom, while
trading constantly with Albany, were rarely averse to a raid against
Massachusetts or New Hampshire.[54] The command was given to the younger
Hertel de Rouville, who was accompanied by four of his brothers. They
began their march in the depth of winter, journeyed nearly three hundred
miles on snow-shoes through the forest, and approached their destination
on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth of February, 1704. It was the
village of Deerfield, which then formed the extreme northwestern
frontier of Massachusetts,--its feeble neighbor, the infant settlement
of Northfield, a little higher up the Connecticut, having been abandoned
during the last war. Rouville halted his followers at a place now called
Petty's Plain, two miles from the village; and here, under the shelter
of a pine forest, they all lay hidden, shivering with cold,--for they
dared not make fires,--and hungry as wolves, for their provisions were
spent. Though their numbers, by the lowest account, were nearly equal
to the whole population of Deerfield,--men, women, and children,--they
had no thought of an open attack, but trusted to darkness and surprise
for an easy victory.
Deerfield stood on a plateau above the river meadows, and the
houses--forty-one in all--were chiefly along the road towards the
villages of Hadley and Hatfield, a few miles distant. In the middle of
the place, on a rising ground called Meeting-house Hill, was a small
square wooden meeting-house. This, with about fifteen private houses,
besides barns and sheds, was enclosed by a fence of palisades eight feet
high, flanked by "mounts," or blockhouses, at two or more of the
corners. The four sides of this palisaded enclosure, which was called
the fort, measured in all no less than two hundred and two rods, and
within it lived some of the principal inhabitants of the village, of
which it formed the centre or citadel. Chief among its inmates was John
Williams, the minister, a man of character and education, who, after
graduating at Harvard, had come to Deerfield when it was still suffering
under the ruinous effects of King Philip's War, and entered on his
ministry with a salary of sixty pounds in depreciated New England
currency, payable, not in money, but in wheat, Indian-corn, and
pork.[55] His parishioners built him a house, he married, and had now
eight children, one of whom was absent with friends at Hadley.[56] His
next neighbor was Benoni Stebbins, sergeant in the county militia, who
lived a few rods from the meeting-house. About fifty yards distant, and
near the northwest angle of the enclosure, stood the house of Ensign
John Sheldon, a framed building, one of the largest in the village, and,
like that of Stebbins, made bullet-proof by a layer of bricks between
the outer and inner sheathing, while its small windows and its
projecting upper story also helped to make it defensible.
The space enclosed by the palisade, though much too large for effective
defence, served in time of alarm as an asylum for the inhabitants
outside, whose houses were scattered,--some on the north towards the
hidden enemy, and some on the south towards Hadley and Hatfield. Among
those on the south side was that of the militia captain, Jonathan Wells,
which had a palisade of its own, and, like the so-called fort, served as
an asylum for the neighbors.
These private fortified houses were sometimes built by the owners alone,
though more often they were the joint work of the owners and of the
inhabitants, to whose safety they contributed. The palisade fence that
enclosed the central part of the village was made under a vote of the
town, each inhabitant being required to do his share; and as they were
greatly impoverished by the last war, the General Court of the province
remitted for a time a part of their taxes in consideration of a work
which aided the general defence.[57]
Down to the Peace of Ryswick the neighborhood had been constantly
infested by scalping-parties, and once the village had been attacked by
a considerable force of French and Indians, who were beaten off. Of late
there had been warnings of fresh disturbance. Lord Cornbury, governor of
New York, wrote that he had heard through spies that Deerfield was again
to be attacked, and a message to the same effect came from Peter
Schuyler, who had received intimations of the danger from Mohawks lately
on a visit to their Caughnawaga relatives. During the autumn the alarm
was so great that the people took refuge within the palisades, and the
houses of the enclosure were crowded with them; but the panic had now
subsided, and many, though not all, had returned to their homes. They
were reassured by the presence of twenty volunteers from the villages
below, whom, on application from the minister, Williams, the General
Court had sent as a garrison to Deerfield, where they were lodged in the
houses of the villagers. On the night when Hertel de Rouville and his
band lay hidden among the pines there were in all the settlement a
little less than three hundred souls, of whom two hundred and
sixty-eight were inhabitants, twenty were yeomen soldiers of the
garrison, two were visitors from Hatfield, and three were negro slaves.
They were of all ages,--from the Widow Allison, in her eighty-fifth
year, to the infant son of Deacon French, aged four weeks.[58]
Heavy snows had lately fallen and buried the clearings, the meadow, and
the frozen river to the depth of full three feet. On the northwestern
side the drifts were piled nearly to the top of the palisade fence, so
that it was no longer an obstruction to an active enemy.
As the afternoon waned, the sights and sounds of the little border
hamlet were, no doubt, like those of any other rustic New England
village at the end of a winter day,--an ox-sledge creaking on the frosty
snow as it brought in the last load of firewood, boys in homespun
snowballing one another in the village street, farmers feeding their
horses and cattle in the barns, a matron drawing a pail of water with
the help of one of those long well-sweeps still used in some remote
districts, or a girl bringing a pail of milk from the cow-shed. In the
houses, where one room served as kitchen, dining-room, and parlor, the
housewife cooked the evening meal, children sat at their bowls of mush
and milk, and the men of the family, their day's work over, gathered
about the fire, while perhaps some village coquette sat in the corner
with fingers busy at the spinning-wheel, and ears intent on the
stammered wooings of her rustic lover. Deerfield kept early hours, and
it is likely that by nine o'clock all were in their beds. There was a
patrol inside the palisade, but there was little discipline among these
extemporized soldiers; the watchers grew careless as the frosty night
went on; and it is said that towards morning they, like the villagers,
betook themselves to their beds.
Rouville and his men, savage with hunger, lay shivering under the pines
till about two hours before dawn; then, leaving their packs and their
snow-shoes behind, they moved cautiously towards their prey. There was a
crust on the snow strong enough to bear their weight, though not to
prevent a rustling noise as it crunched under the feet of so many men.
It is said that from time to time Rouville commanded a halt, in order
that the sentinels, if such there were, might mistake the distant sound
for rising and falling gusts of wind. In any case, no alarm was given
till they had mounted the palisade and dropped silently into the
unconscious village. Then with one accord they screeched the war-whoop,
and assailed the doors of the houses with axes and hatchets.
The hideous din startled the minister, Williams, from his sleep.
Half-wakened, he sprang out of bed, and saw dimly a crowd of savages
bursting through the shattered door. He shouted to two soldiers who were
lodged in the house; and then, with more valor than discretion, snatched
a pistol that hung at the head of the bed, cocked it, and snapped it at
the breast of the foremost Indian, who proved to be a Caughnawaga chief.
It missed fire, or Williams would, no doubt, have been killed on the
spot. Amid the screams of his terrified children, three of the party
seized him and bound him fast; for they came well provided with cords,
since prisoners had a market value. Nevertheless, in the first fury of
their attack they dragged to the door and murdered two of the children
and a negro woman called Parthena, who was probably their nurse. In an
upper room lodged a young man named Stoddard, who had time to snatch a
cloak, throw himself out of the window, climb the palisade, and escape
in the darkness. Half-naked as he was, he made his way over the snow to
Hatfield, binding his bare feet with strips torn from the cloak.
They kept Williams shivering in his shirt for an hour while a frightful
uproar of yells, shrieks, and gunshots sounded from without. At length
they permitted him, his wife, and five remaining children to dress
themselves. Meanwhile the Indians and their allies burst into most of
the houses, killed such of the men as resisted, butchered some of the
women and children, and seized and bound the rest. Some of the villagers
escaped in the confusion, like Stoddard, and either fled half dead with
cold towards Hatfield, or sought refuge in the fortified house of
Jonathan Wells.
The house of Stebbins, the minister's next neighbor, had not been
attacked so soon as the rest, and the inmates had a little time for
preparation. They consisted of Stebbins himself, with his wife and five
children, David Hoyt, Joseph Catlin, Benjamin Church, a namesake of the
old Indian fighter of Philip's War, and three other men,--probably
refugees who had brought their wives and families within the palisaded
enclosure for safety. Thus the house contained seven men, four or five
women, and a considerable number of children. Though the walls were
bullet-proof, it was not built for defence. The men, however, were well
supplied with guns, powder, and lead, and they seem to have found some
means of barricading the windows. When the enemy tried to break in, they
drove them back with loss. On this, the French and Indians gathered in
great numbers before the house, showered bullets upon it, and tried to
set it on fire. They were again repulsed, with the loss of several
killed and wounded; among the former a Caughnawaga chief, and among the
latter a French officer. Still the firing continued. If the assailants
had made a resolute assault, the defenders must have been overpowered;
but to risk lives in open attack was contrary to every maxim of forest
warfare. The women in the house behaved with great courage, and moulded
bullets, which the men shot at the enemy. Stebbins was killed outright,
and Church was wounded, as was also the wife of David Hoyt. At length
most of the French and Indians, disgusted with the obstinacy of the
defence, turned their attention to other quarters; though some kept up
their fire under cover of the meeting-house and another building within
easy range of gunshot.
This building was the house of Ensign John Sheldon, already mentioned.
The Indians had had some difficulty in mastering it; for the door being
of thick oak plank, studded with nails of wrought iron and well barred,
they could not break it open. After a time, however, they hacked a hole
in it, through which they fired and killed Mrs. Sheldon as she sat on
the edge of a bed in a lower room. Her husband, a man of great
resolution, seems to have been absent. Their son John, with Hannah his
wife, jumped from an upper chamber window. The young woman sprained her
ankle in the fall, and lay helpless, but begged her husband to run to
Hatfield for aid, which he did, while she remained a prisoner. The
Indians soon got in at a back door, seized Mercy Sheldon, a little girl
of two years, and dashed out her brains on the door-stone. Her two
brothers and her sister Mary, a girl of sixteen, were captured. The
house was used for a short time as a depot for prisoners, and here also
was brought the French officer wounded in the attack on the Stebbins
house. A family tradition relates that as he lay in great torment he
begged for water, and that it was brought him by one of the prisoners,
Mrs. John Catlin, whose husband, son, and infant grandson had been
killed, and who, nevertheless, did all in her power to relieve the
sufferings of the wounded man. Probably it was in recognition of this
charity that when the other prisoners were led away, Mrs. Catlin was
left behind. She died of grief a few weeks later.
The sun was scarcely an hour high when the miserable drove of captives
was conducted across the river to the foot of a mountain or high hill.
Williams and his family were soon compelled to follow, and his house was
set on fire. As they led him off he saw that other houses within the
palisade were burning, and that all were in the power of the enemy
except that of his neighbor Stebbins, where the gallant defenders still
kept their assailants at bay. Having collected all their prisoners, the
main body of the French and Indians began to withdraw towards the pine
forest, where they had left their packs and snow-shoes, and to prepare
for a retreat before the country should be roused, first murdering in
cold blood Marah Carter, a little girl of five years, whom they probably
thought unequal to the march. Several parties, however, still lingered
in the village, firing on the Stebbins house, killing cattle, hogs, and
sheep, and gathering such plunder as the place afforded.
Early in the attack, and while it was yet dark, the light of burning
houses, reflected from the fields of snow, had been seen at Hatfield,
Hadley, and Northampton. The alarm was sounded through the slumbering
hamlets, and parties of men mounted on farm-horses, with saddles or
without, hastened to the rescue, not doubting that the fires were
kindled by Indians. When the sun was about two hours high, between
thirty and forty of them were gathered at the fortified house of
Jonathan Wells, at the southern end of the village. The houses of this
neighborhood were still standing, and seem not to have been
attacked,--the stubborn defence of the Stebbins house having apparently
prevented the enemy from pushing much beyond the palisaded enclosure.
The house of Wells was full of refugee families. A few Deerfield men
here joined the horsemen from the lower towns, as also did four or five
of the yeoman soldiers who had escaped the fate of most of their
comrades. The horsemen left their horses within Wells's fence; he
himself took the lead, and the whole party rushed in together at the
southern gate of the palisaded enclosure, drove out the plunderers, and
retook a part of their plunder. The assailants of the Stebbins house,
after firing at it for three hours, were put to flight, and those of its
male occupants who were still alive joined their countrymen, while the
women and children ran back for harborage to the house of Wells.
Wells and his men, now upwards of fifty, drove the flying enemy more
than a mile across the river meadows, and ran in headlong pursuit over
the crusted snow, killing a considerable number. In the eagerness of the
chase many threw off their overcoats, and even their jackets. Wells saw
the danger, and vainly called on them to stop. Their blood was up, and
most of them were young and inexperienced.
Meanwhile the firing at the village had been heard by Rouville's main
body, who had already begun their retreat northward. They turned back to
support their comrades, and hid themselves under the bank of the river
till the pursuers drew near, when they gave them a close volley and
rushed upon them with the war-whoop. Some of the English were shot down,
and the rest driven back. There was no panic. "We retreated," says
Wells, "facing about and firing." When they reached the palisade they
made a final stand, covering by their fire such of their comrades as had
fallen within range of musket-shot, and thus saving them from the
scalping-knife. The French did not try to dislodge them. Nine of them
had been killed, several were wounded, and one was captured.[59]
The number of English carried off prisoners was one hundred and eleven,
and the number killed was according to one list forty-seven, and
according to another fifty-three, the latter including some who were
smothered in the cellars of their burning houses. The names, and in most
cases the ages, of both captives and slain are preserved. Those who
escaped with life and freedom were, by the best account, one hundred and
thirty-seven. An official tabular statement, drawn up on the spot, sets
the number of houses burned at seventeen. The house of the town clerk,
Thomas French, escaped, as before mentioned, and the town records, with
other papers in his charge, were saved. The meeting-house also was left
standing. The house of Sheldon was hastily set on fire by the French and
Indians when their rear was driven out of the village by Wells and his
men; but the fire was extinguished, and "the Old Indian House," as it
was called, stood till the year 1849. Its door, deeply scarred with
hatchets, and with a hole cut near the middle, is still preserved in the
Memorial Hall at Deerfield.[60]
Vaudreuil wrote to the minister, Ponchartrain, that the French lost two
or three killed, and twenty or twenty-one wounded, Rouville himself
being among the latter. This cannot include the Indians, since there is
proof that the enemy left behind a considerable number of their dead.
Wherever resistance was possible, it had been of the most prompt and
determined character.[61]
Long before noon the French and Indians were on their northward march
with their train of captives. More armed men came up from the
settlements below, and by midnight about eighty were gathered at the
ruined village. Couriers had been sent to rouse the country, and before
evening of the next day (the first of March) the force at Deerfield was
increased to two hundred and fifty; but a thaw and a warm rain had set
in, and as few of the men had snow-shoes, pursuit was out of the
question. Even could the agile savages and their allies have been
overtaken, the probable consequence would have been the murdering of the
captives to prevent their escape.
In spite of the foul blow dealt upon it, Deerfield was not abandoned.
Such of its men as were left were taken as soldiers into the pay of the
province, while the women and children were sent to the villages below.
A small garrison was also stationed at the spot, under command of
Captain Jonathan Wells, and thus the village held its ground till the
storm of war should pass over.[62]
We have seen that the minister, Williams, with his wife and family,
were led from their burning house across the river to the foot of the
mountain, where the crowd of terrified and disconsolate
captives--friends, neighbors, and relatives--were already gathered. Here
they presently saw the fight in the meadow, and were told that if their
countrymen attempted a rescue, they should all be put to death. "After
this," writes Williams, "we went up the mountain, and saw the smoke of
the fires in town, and beheld the awful desolation of Deerfield; and
before we marched any farther they killed a sucking child of the
English."
The French and Indians marched that afternoon only four or five
miles,--to Greenfield meadows,--where they stopped to encamp, dug away
the snow, laid spruce-boughs on the ground for beds, and bound fast such
of the prisoners as seemed able to escape. The Indians then held a
carousal on some liquor they had found in the village, and in their
drunken rage murdered a negro man belonging to Williams. In spite of
their precautions, Joseph Alexander, one of the prisoners, escaped
during the night, at which they were greatly incensed; and Rouville
ordered Williams to tell his companions in misfortune that if any more
of them ran off, the rest should be burned alive.[63]
The prisoners were the property of those who had taken them. Williams
had two masters, one of the three who had seized him having been shot in
the attack on the house of Stebbins. His principal owner was a surly
fellow who would not let him speak to the other prisoners; but as he was
presently chosen to guard the rear, the minister was left in the hands
of his other master, who allowed him to walk beside his wife and help
her on the way. Having borne a child a few weeks before, she was in no
condition for such a march, and felt that her hour was near. Williams
speaks of her in the strongest terms of affection. She made no
complaint, and accepted her fate with resignation. "We discoursed," he
says, "of the happiness of those who had God for a father and friend, as
also that it was our reasonable duty quietly to submit to his will." Her
thoughts were for her remaining children, whom she commended to her
husband's care. Their intercourse was short. The Indian who had gone to
the rear of the train soon returned, separated them, ordered Williams to
the front, "and so made me take a last farewell of my dear wife, the
desire of my eyes and companion in many mercies and afflictions." They
came soon after to Green River, a stream then about knee-deep, and so
swift that the water had not frozen. After wading it with difficulty,
they climbed a snow-covered hill beyond. The minister, with strength
almost spent, was permitted to rest a few moments at the top; and as the
other prisoners passed by in turn, he questioned each for news of his
wife. He was not left long in suspense. She had fallen from
weakness in fording the stream, but gained her feet again, and, drenched
in the icy current, struggled to the farther bank, when the savage who
owned her, finding that she could not climb the hill, killed her with
one stroke of his hatchet. Her body was left on the snow till a few of
her townsmen, who had followed the trail, found it a day or two after,
carried it back to Deerfield, and buried it in the churchyard.
[Illustration: _The Return from Deerfield._
Drawn by Howard Pyle.]
On the next day the Indians killed an infant and a little girl of eleven
years; on the day following, Friday, they tomahawked a woman, and on
Saturday four others. This apparent cruelty was in fact a kind of mercy.
The victims could not keep up with the party, and the death-blow saved
them from a lonely and lingering death from cold and starvation. Some of
the children, when spent with the march, were carried on the backs of
their owners,--partly, perhaps, through kindness, and partly because
every child had its price.
On the fourth day of the march they came to the mouth of West River,
which enters the Connecticut a little above the present town of
Brattleboro'. Some of the Indians were discontented with the
distribution of the captives, alleging that others had got more than
their share; on which the whole troop were mustered together, and some
changes of ownership were agreed upon. At this place dog-trains and
sledges had been left, and these served to carry their wounded, as well
as some of the captive children. Williams was stripped of the better
part of his clothes, and others given him instead, so full of vermin
that they were a torment to him through all the journey. The march now
continued with pitiless speed up the frozen Connecticut, where the
recent thaw had covered the ice with slush and water ankle-deep.
On Sunday they made a halt, and the minister was permitted to preach a
sermon from the text, "Hear, all people, and behold my sorrow: my
virgins and my young men are gone into captivity." Then amid the ice,
the snow, the forest, and the savages, his forlorn flock joined their
voices in a psalm.[64] On Monday guns were heard from the rear, and the
Indians and their allies, in great alarm, bound their prisoners fast,
and prepared for battle. It proved, however, that the guns had been
fired at wild geese by some of their own number; on which they recovered
their spirits, fired a volley for joy, and boasted that the English
could not overtake them.[65] More women fainted by the way and died
under the hatchet,--some with pious resignation, some with despairing
apathy, some with a desperate joy.
Two hundred miles of wilderness still lay between them and the Canadian
settlements. It was a waste without a house or even a wigwam, except
here and there the bark shed of some savage hunter. At the mouth of
White River, the party divided into small bands,--no doubt in order to
subsist by hunting, for provisions were fast failing. The Williams
family were separated. Stephen was carried up the Connecticut; Samuel
and Eunice, with two younger children, were carried off in various
directions; while the wretched father, along with two small children of
one of his parishioners, was compelled to follow his Indian masters up
the valley of White River. One of the children--a little girl--was
killed on the next morning by her Caughnawaga owner, who was unable to
carry her.[66] On the next Sunday the minister was left in camp with one
Indian and the surviving child,--a boy of nine,--while the rest of the
party were hunting. "My spirit," he says, "was almost overwhelmed within
me." But he found comfort in the text, "Leave thy fatherless children, I
will preserve them alive." Nor was his hope deceived. His youngest
surviving child,--a boy of four,--though harshly treated by his owners,
was carried on their shoulders or dragged on a sledge to the end of the
journey. His youngest daughter--seven years old--was treated with great
kindness throughout. Samuel and Eunice suffered much from hunger, but
were dragged on sledges when too faint to walk. Stephen nearly starved
to death; but after eight months in the forest, he safely reached
Chambly with his Indian masters.
Of the whole band of captives, only about half ever again saw friends
and home. Seventeen broke down on the way and were killed; while David
Hoyt and Jacob Hix died of starvation at Coos Meadows, on the upper
Connecticut. During the entire march, no woman seems to have been
subjected to violence; and this holds true, with rare exceptions, in all
the Indian wars of New England. This remarkable forbearance towards
female prisoners, so different from the practice of many western tribes,
was probably due to a form of superstition, aided perhaps by the
influence of the missionaries.[67] It is to be observed, however, that
the heathen savages of King Philip's War, who had never seen a Jesuit,
were no less forbearing in this respect.
The hunters of Williams's party killed five moose, the flesh of which,
smoked and dried, was carried on their backs and that of the prisoner
whom they had provided with snow-shoes. Thus burdened, the minister
toiled on, following his masters along the frozen current of White River
till, crossing the snowy backs of the Green Mountains, they struck the
headwaters of the stream then called French River, now the Winooski, or
Onion. Being in great fear of a thaw, they pushed on with double speed.
Williams was not used to snow-shoes, and they gave him those painful
cramps of the legs and ankles called in Canada _mal à la raquette_. One
morning at dawn he was waked by his chief master and ordered to get up,
say his prayers, and eat his breakfast, for they must make a long march
that day. The minister was in despair. "After prayer," he says, "I arose
from my knees; but my feet were so tender, swollen, bruised, and full of
pain that I could scarce stand upon them without holding on the wigwam.
And when the Indians said, 'You must run to-day,' I answered I could not
run. My master, pointing to his hatchet, said to me, 'Then I must dash
out your brains and take your scalp.'" The Indian proved better than his
word, and Williams was suffered to struggle on as he could. "God
wonderfully supported me," he writes, "and my strength was restored and
renewed to admiration." He thinks that he walked that day forty miles on
the snow. Following the Winooski to its mouth, the party reached Lake
Champlain a little north of the present city of Burlington. Here the
swollen feet of the prisoner were tortured by the rough ice, till snow
began to fall and cover it with a soft carpet. Bending under his load,
and powdered by the falling flakes, he toiled on till, at noon of a
Saturday, lean, tired, and ragged, he and his masters reached the French
outpost of Chambly, twelve or fifteen miles from Montreal.
Here the unhappy wayfarer was treated with great kindness both by the
officers of the fort and by the inhabitants, one of the chief among whom
lodged him in his house and welcomed him to his table. After a short
stay at Chambly, Williams and his masters set out in a canoe for Sorel.
On the way a Frenchwoman came down to the bank of the river and invited
the party to her house, telling the minister that she herself had once
been a prisoner among the Indians, and knew how to feel for him. She
seated him at a table, spread a table-cloth, and placed food before him,
while the Indians, to their great indignation, were supplied with a meal
in the chimney-corner. Similar kindness was shown by the inhabitants
along the way till the party reached their destination, the Abenaki
village of St. Francis, to which his masters belonged. Here there was a
fort, in which lived two Jesuits, directors of the mission, and here
Williams found several English children, captured the summer before
during the raid on the settlements of Maine, and already transformed
into little Indians both in dress and behavior. At the gate of the fort
one of the Jesuits met him, and asked him to go into the church and give
thanks to God for sparing his life, to which he replied that he would
give thanks in some other place. The priest then commanded him to go,
which he refused to do. When on the next day the bell rang for mass, one
of his Indian masters seized him and dragged him into the church, where
he got behind the door, and watched the service from his retreat with
extreme disapprobation. One of the Jesuits telling him that he would go
to hell for not accepting the apostolic traditions, and trusting only in
the Bible, he replied that he was glad to know that Christ was to be
his judge, and not they. His chief master, who was a zealot in his way,
and as much bound to the rites and forms of the Church as he had been
before his conversion to his "medicines," or practices of heathen
superstition, one day ordered him to make the sign of the cross, and on
his refusal, tried to force him. But as the minister was tough and
muscular, the Indian could not guide his hand. Then, pulling out a
crucifix that hung at his neck, he told Williams in broken English to
kiss it; and being again refused, he brandished his hatchet over him and
threatened to knock out his brains. This failing of the desired effect,
he threw down the hatchet and said he would first bite out the
minister's finger-nails,--a form of torture then in vogue among the
northern Indians, both converts and heathen. Williams offered him a hand
and invited him to begin; on which he gave the thumb-nail a gripe with
his teeth, and then let it go, saying, "No good minister, bad as the
devil." The failure seems to have discouraged him, for he made no
further attempt to convert the intractable heretic.
The direct and simple narrative of Williams is plainly the work of an
honest and courageous man. He was the most important capture of the
year; and the governor, hearing that he was at St. Francis, despatched a
canoe to request the Jesuits of the mission to send him to Montreal.
Thither, therefore, his masters carried him, expecting, no doubt, a good
price for their prisoner. Vaudreuil, in fact, bought him, exchanged his
tattered clothes for good ones, lodged him in his house, and, in the
words of Williams, "was in all respects relating to my outward man
courteous and charitable to admiration." He sent for two of the
minister's children who were in the town, bought his eldest daughter
from the Indians, and promised to do what he could to get the others out
of their hands. His youngest son was bought by a lady of the place, and
his eldest by a merchant. His youngest daughter, Eunice, then seven or
eight years old, was at the mission of St. Louis, or Caughnawaga.
Vaudreuil sent a priest to conduct Williams thither and try to ransom
the child. But the Jesuits of the mission flatly refused to let him
speak to or see her. Williams says that Vaudreuil was very angry at
hearing of this; and a few days after, he went himself to Caughnawaga
with the minister. This time the Jesuits, whose authority within their
mission seemed almost to override that of the governor himself, yielded
so far as to permit the father to see his child, on condition that he
spoke to no other English prisoner. He talked with her for an hour,
exhorting her never to forget her catechism, which she had learned by
rote. Vaudreuil and his wife afterwards did all in their power to
procure her ransom; but the Indians, or the missionaries in their name,
would not let her go. "She is there still," writes Williams two years
later, "and has forgotten to speak English." What grieved him still
more, Eunice had forgotten her catechism.
While he was at Montreal, his movements were continually watched, lest
he should speak to other prisoners and prevent their conversion. He
thinks these precautions were due to the priests, whose constant
endeavor it was to turn the captives, or at least the younger and more
manageable among them, into Catholics and Canadians. The governor's
kindness towards him never failed, though he told him that he should not
be set free till the English gave up one Captain Baptiste, a noted
sea-rover whom they had captured some time before.
He was soon after sent down the river to Quebec along with the superior
of the Jesuits. Here he lodged seven weeks with a member of the council,
who treated him kindly, but told him that if he did not avoid
intercourse with the other English prisoners he would be sent farther
away. He saw much of the Jesuits, who courteously asked him to dine;
though he says that one of them afterwards made some Latin verses about
him, in which he was likened to a captive wolf. Another Jesuit told him
that when the mission Indians set out on their raid against Deerfield,
he charged them to baptize all children before killing them,--such, he
said, was his desire for the salvation even of his enemies. To murdering
the children after they were baptized, he appears to have made no
objection. Williams says that in their dread lest he should prevent the
conversion of the other prisoners, the missionaries promised him a
pension from the King and free intercourse with his children and
neighbors if he would embrace the Catholic faith and remain in Canada;
to which he answered that he would do so without reward if he thought
their religion was true, but as he believed the contrary, "the offer of
the whole world would tempt him no more than a blackberry."
To prevent him more effectually from perverting the minds of his captive
countrymen, and fortifying them in their heresy, he was sent to Château
Richer, a little below Quebec, and lodged with the parish priest, who
was very kind to him. "I am persuaded," he writes, "that he abhorred
their sending down the heathen to commit outrages against the English,
saying it is more like committing murders than carrying on war."
He was sorely tried by the incessant efforts to convert the prisoners.
"Sometimes they would tell me my children, sometimes my neighbors, were
turned to be of their religion. Some made it their work to allure poor
souls by flatteries and great promises; some threatened, some offered
abuse to such as refused to go to church and be present at mass; and
some they industriously contrived to get married among them. I
understood they would tell the English that I was turned, that they
might gain them to change their religion. These their endeavors to
seduce to popery were very exercising to me."
After a time he was permitted to return to Quebec, where he met an
English Franciscan, who, he says, had been sent from France to aid in
converting the prisoners. Lest the minister should counteract the
efforts of the friar, the priests had him sent back to Château Richer;
"but," he observes, "God showed his dislike of such a persecuting
spirit; for the very next day the Seminary, a very famous building, was
most of it burnt down, by a joiner letting a coal of fire drop among the
shavings."[68]
The heaviest of all his tribulations now fell upon him. His son Samuel,
about sixteen years old, had been kept at Montreal under the tutelage of
Father Meriel, a priest of St. Sulpice. The boy afterwards declared that
he was promised great rewards if he would make the sign of the cross,
and severe punishment if he would not. Proving obstinate, he was whipped
till at last he made the sign; after which he was told to go to mass,
and on his refusal, four stout boys of the school were ordered to drag
him in. Williams presently received a letter in Samuel's handwriting,
though dictated, as the father believed, by his priestly tutors. In this
was recounted, with many edifying particulars, the deathbed conversion
of two New England women; and to the minister's unspeakable grief and
horror, the messenger who brought the letter told him that the boy
himself had turned Catholic. "I have heard the news," he wrote to his
recreant son, "with the most distressing, afflicting, sorrowful spirit.
Oh, I pity you, I mourn over you day and night. Oh, I pity your weakness
that, through the craftiness of man, you are turned from the simplicity
of the gospel." Though his correspondence was strictly watched, he
managed to convey to the boy a long exposition, from his own pen, of the
infallible truth of Calvinistic orthodoxy, and the damnable errors of
Rome. This, or something else, had its effect. Samuel returned to the
creed of his fathers; and being at last exchanged, went home to
Deerfield, where he was chosen town-clerk in 1713, and where he soon
after died.[69]
Williams gives many particulars of the efforts of the priests to convert
the prisoners, and his account, like the rest of his story, bears the
marks of truth. There was a treble motive for conversion: it recruited
the Church, weakened the enemy, and strengthened Canada, since few of
the converts would peril their souls by returning to their heretic
relatives. The means of conversion varied. They were gentle when
gentleness seemed likely to answer the purpose. Little girls and young
women were placed in convents, where it is safe to assume that they were
treated with the most tender kindness by the sisterhood, who fully
believed that to gain them to the faith was to snatch them from
perdition. But when they or their brothers proved obdurate, different
means were used. Threats of hell were varied by threats of a whipping,
which, according to Williams, were often put into execution. Parents
were rigorously severed from their families; though one Lalande, who
had been sent to watch the elder prisoners, reported that they would
persist in trying to see their children, till some of them were killed
in the attempt. "Here," writes Williams, "might be a history in itself
of the trials and sufferings of many of our children, who, after
separation from grown persons, have been made to do as they would have
them. I mourned when I thought with myself that I had one child with the
Maquas [Caughnawagas], a second turned papist, and a little child of six
years of age in danger to be instructed in popery, and knew full well
that all endeavors would be used to prevent my seeing or speaking with
them." He also says that he and others were told that if they would turn
Catholic their children should be restored to them; and among other
devices, some of his parishioners were assured that their pastor himself
had seen the error of his ways and bowed in submission to Holy Church.
In midwinter, not quite a year after their capture, the prisoners were
visited by a gleam of hope. John Sheldon, accompanied by young John
Wells, of Deerfield, and Captain Livingston, of Albany, came to Montreal
with letters from Governor Dudley, proposing an exchange. Sheldon's wife
and infant child, his brother-in-law, and his son-in-law had been
killed. Four of his children, with his daughter-in-law, Hannah,--the
same who had sprained her ankle in leaping from her chamber
window,--besides others of his near relatives and connections, were
prisoners in Canada; and so also was the mother of young Wells. In the
last December, Sheldon and Wells had gone to Boston and begged to be
sent as envoys to the French governor. The petition was readily granted,
and Livingston, who chanced to be in the town, was engaged to accompany
them. After a snow-shoe journey of extreme hardship they reached their
destination, and were received with courtesy by Vaudreuil. But
difficulties arose. The French, and above all the clergy, were unwilling
to part with captives, many of whom they hoped to transform into
Canadians by conversion and adoption. Many also were in the hands of the
Indians, who demanded payment for them,--which Dudley had always
refused, declaring that he would not "set up an Algiers trade" by buying
them from their pretended owners; and he wrote to Vaudreuil that for his
own part he "would never permit a savage to tell him that any Christian
prisoner was at his disposal." Vaudreuil had insisted that his Indians
could not be compelled to give up their captives, since they were not
subjects of France, but only allies,--which, so far as concerned the
mission Indians within the colony, was but a pretext. It is true,
however, that the French authorities were in such fear of offending even
these that they rarely ventured to cross their interests or their
passions. Other difficulties were raised, and though the envoys remained
in Canada till late in spring, they accomplished little. At last,
probably to get rid of their importunities, five prisoners were given
up to them,--Sheldon's daughter-in-law, Hannah; Esther Williams, eldest
daughter of the minister; a certain Ebenezer Carter; and two others
unknown. With these, Sheldon and his companions set out in May on their
return; and soon after they were gone, four young men,--Baker, Nims,
Kellogg, and Petty,--desperate at being left in captivity, made their
escape from Montreal, and reached Deerfield before the end of June, half
dead with hunger.
Sheldon and his party were escorted homeward by eight soldiers under
Courtemanche, an officer of distinction, whose orders were to "make
himself acquainted with the country." He fell ill at Boston, where he
was treated with much kindness, and on his recovery was sent home by
sea, along with Captain Vetch and Samuel Hill, charged to open a fresh
negotiation. With these, at the request of Courtemanche, went young
William Dudley, son of the governor.[70]
They were received at Quebec with a courtesy qualified by extreme
caution, lest they should spy out the secrets of the land. The mission
was not very successful, though the elder Dudley had now a good number
of French prisoners in his hands, captured in Acadia or on the adjacent
seas. A few only of the English were released, including the boy,
Stephen Williams, whom Vaudreuil had bought for forty crowns from his
Indian master.
In the following winter John Sheldon made another journey on foot to
Canada, with larger powers than before. He arrived in March, 1706, and
returned with forty-four of his released countrymen, who, says Williams,
were chiefly adults permitted to go because there was no hope of
converting them. The English governor had by this time seen the
necessity of greater concessions, and had even consented to release the
noted Captain Baptiste, whom the Boston merchants regarded as a pirate.
In the same summer Samuel Appleton and John Bonner, in the brigantine
"Hope," brought a considerable number of French prisoners to Quebec, and
returned to Boston at the end of October with fifty-seven English, of
all ages. For three, at least, of this number money was paid by the
English, probably on account of prisoners bought by Frenchmen from the
Indians. The minister, Williams, was exchanged for Baptiste, the
so-called pirate, and two of his children were also redeemed, though the
Caughnawagas, or their missionaries, refused to part with his daughter
Eunice. Williams says that the priests made great efforts to induce the
prisoners to remain in Canada, tempting some with the prospect of
pensions from the King, and frightening others with promises of
damnation, joined with predictions of shipwreck on the way home. He
thinks that about one hundred were left in Canada, many of whom were
children in the hands of the Indians, who could easily hide them in the
woods, and who were known in some cases to have done so. Seven more were
redeemed in the following year by the indefatigable Sheldon, on a third
visit to Canada.[71]
The exchanged prisoners had been captured at various times and places.
Those from Deerfield amounted in all to about sixty, or a little more
than half the whole number carried off. Most of the others were dead or
converted. Some married Canadians, and others their fellow-captives. The
history of some of them can be traced with certainty. Thus, Thomas
French, blacksmith and town clerk of Deerfield, and deacon of the
church, was captured, with his wife and six children. His wife and
infant child were killed on the way to Canada. He and his two eldest
children were exchanged and brought home. His daughter Freedom was
converted, baptized under the name of Marie Françoise, and married to
Jean Daulnay, a Canadian. His daughter Martha was baptized as
Marguerite, and married to Jacques Roy, on whose death she married Jean
Louis Ménard, by whom she became ancestress of Joseph Plessis, eleventh
bishop of Quebec. Elizabeth Corse, eight years old when captured, was
baptized under her own name, and married to Jean Dumontel. Abigail
Stebbins, baptized as Marguerite, lived many years at Boucherville, wife
of Jacques de Noyon, a sergeant in the colony troops. The widow, Sarah
Hurst, whose youngest child, Benjamin, had been murdered on the
Deerfield meadows, was baptized as Marie Jeanne.[72] Joanna Kellogg,
eleven years old when taken, married a Caughnawaga chief, and became, at
all points, an Indian squaw.
She was not alone in this strange transformation. Eunice Williams, the
namesake of her slaughtered mother, remained in the wigwams of the
Caughnawagas, forgot, as we have seen, her English and her catechism,
was baptized, and in due time married to an Indian of the tribe, who
thenceforward called himself Williams. Thus her hybrid children bore her
family name. Her father, who returned to his parish at Deerfield, and
her brother Stephen, who became a minister like his parent, never ceased
to pray for her return to her country and her faith. Many years after,
in 1740, she came with her husband to visit her relatives in Deerfield,
dressed as a squaw and wrapped in an Indian blanket. Nothing would
induce her to stay, though she was persuaded on one occasion to put on a
civilized dress and go to church; after which she impatiently discarded
her gown and resumed her blanket. As she was kindly treated by her
relatives, and as no attempt was made to detain her against her will,
she came again in the next year, bringing two of her half-breed
children, and twice afterwards repeated the visit. She and her husband
were offered a tract of land if they would settle in New England; but
she positively refused, saying that it would endanger her soul. She
lived to a great age, a squaw to the last.[73]
One of her grandsons, Eleazer Williams, turned Protestant, was educated
at Dartmouth College at the charge of friends in New England, and was
for a time missionary to the Indians of Green Bay, in Wisconsin. His
character for veracity was not of the best. He deceived the excellent
antiquarian, Hoyt, by various inventions touching the attack on
Deerfield, and in the latter part of his life tried to pass himself off
as the lost Dauphin, son of Louis XVI.[74]
Here it may be observed that the descendants of young captives brought
into Canada by the mission Indians during the various wars with the
English colonies became a considerable element in the Canadian
population. Perhaps the most prominent example is that of the Gill
family. In June, 1697, a boy named Samuel Gill, then in his tenth year,
was captured by the Abenakis at Salisbury in Massachusetts, carried to
St. Francis, and converted. Some years later he married a young English
girl, said to have been named James, and to have been captured at
Kennebunk.[75] In 1866 the late Abbé Maurault, missionary at St.
Francis, computed their descendants at nine hundred and fifty-two, in
whose veins French, English, and Abenaki blood were mixed in every
conceivable proportion. He gives the tables of genealogy in full, and
says that two hundred and thirteen of this prolific race still bear the
surname of Gill. "If," concludes the worthy priest, "one should trace
out all the English families brought into Canada by the Abenakis, one
would be astonished at the number of persons who to-day are indebted to
these savages for the blessing of being Catholics and the advantage of
being Canadians,"[76]--an advantage for which French-Canadians are so
ungrateful that they migrate to the United States by myriads.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 14 Novembre, 1703_; _Ibid., 3 Avril, 1704_;
_Vaudreuil et Beauharnois au Ministre 17 Novembre, 1704_. French writers
say that the English surprised and killed some of the Abenakis, who
thereupon asked help from Canada. This perhaps refers to the expeditions
of Colonel March and Captain Tyng, who, after the bloody attacks upon
the settlements of Maine, made reprisal upon Abenaki camps.
[54] English accounts make the whole number 342.
[55] Stephen W. Williams, _Biographical Memoir of Rev. John Williams_.
[56] _Account of ye destruction at Derefd, February 29, 1703/4._
[57] Papers in the Archives of Massachusetts. Among these, a letter of
Rev. John Williams to the governor, 21 October, 1703, states that the
palisade is rotten, and must be rebuilt.
[58] The names of nearly all the inhabitants are preserved, and even the
ages of most of them have been ascertained, through the indefatigable
research of Mr. George Sheldon, of Deerfield, among contemporary
records. The house of Thomas French, the town clerk, was not destroyed,
and his papers were saved.
[59] On the thirty-first of May, 1704, Jonathan Wells and Ebenezer
Wright petitioned the General Court for compensation for the losses of
those who drove the enemy out of Deerfield and chased them into the
meadow. The petition, which was granted, gives an account of the affair,
followed by a list of all the men engaged. They number fifty-seven,
including the nine who were killed. A list of the plunder retaken from
the enemy, consisting of guns, blankets, hatchets, etc., is also added.
Several other petitions for the relief of men wounded at the same time
are preserved in the archives of Massachusetts. In 1736 the survivors of
the party, with the representatives of those who had died, petitioned
the General Court for allotments of land, in recognition of their
services. This petition also was granted. It is accompanied by a
narrative written by Wells. These and other papers on the same subject
have been recently printed by Mr. George Sheldon, of Deerfield.
[60] After the old house was demolished, this door was purchased by my
friend Dr. Daniel Denison Slade, and given by him to the town of
Deerfield, on condition that it should be carefully preserved. For an
engraving of "the Old Indian House," see Hoyt, _Indian Wars_ (ed. 1824).
[61] Governor Dudley, writing to Lord ---- on 21 April, 1704, says that
thirty dead bodies of the enemy were found in the village and on the
meadow. Williams, the minister, says that they did not seem inclined to
rejoice over their success, and continued for several days to bury
members of their party who died of wounds on the return march. He adds
that he learned in Canada that they lost more than forty, though
Vaudreuil assured him that they lost but eleven.
[62] On the attack of Deerfield, see Williams, _The Redeemed Captive
Returning to Zion_. This is the narrative of the minister, John
Williams. _Account of the Captivity of Stephen Williams, written by
himself._ This is the narrative of one of the minister's sons, eleven
years old when captured. It is printed in the Appendix to the
_Biographical Memoir of Rev. John Williams_ (Hartford, 1837); _An
account of ye destruction at Derefd. febr. 29, 1703/4_, in
_Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1867, p. 478. This valuable
document was found among the papers of Fitz-John Winthrop, governor of
Connecticut. The authorities of that province, on hearing of the
catastrophe at Deerfield, promptly sent an armed force to its relief,
which, however, could not arrive till long after the enemy were gone.
The paper in question seems to be the official report of one of the
Connecticut officers. After recounting what had taken place, he gives a
tabular list of the captives, the slain, and those who escaped, with the
estimated losses in property of each inhabitant. The list of captives is
not quite complete. Compare the lists given by Stephen Williams at the
end of his narrative. The town records of Hatfield give various
particulars concerning the attack on its unfortunate neighbor, as do the
letters of Colonel Samuel Partridge, commanding the militia of the
county. Hoyt, _Antiquarian Researches_, gives a valuable account of it.
The careful and unwearied research of Mr. George Sheldon, the lineal
descendant of Ensign John Sheldon, among all sources, public or private,
manuscript or in print, that could throw light on the subject cannot be
too strongly commended, and I am indebted to him for much valued
information.
Penhallow's short account is inexact, and many of the more recent
narratives are not only exaggerated, but sometimes absurdly incorrect.
The French notices of the affair are short, and give few particulars.
Vaudreuil in one letter sets the number of prisoners at one hundred and
fifty, and increases it in another to two hundred and fifty. Ramesay,
governor of Montreal, who hated Hertel de Rouville, and bore no love to
Vaudreuil, says that fifty-six women and children were murdered on the
way to Canada,--which is a gross exaggeration. (_Ramesay au Ministre, 14
Novembre, 1704._) The account by Dr. Ethier in the _Revue Canadienne_ of
1874 is drawn entirely from the _Redeemed Captive_ of Williams, with
running comments by the Canadian writer, but no new information. The
comments chiefly consist in praise of Williams for truth when he speaks
favorably of the Canadians, and charges of lying when he speaks
otherwise.
[63] John Williams, _The Redeemed Captive_. Compare Stephen Williams,
_Account of the Captivity_, etc.
[64] The small stream at the mouth of which Williams is supposed to have
preached is still called Williams River.
[65] Stephen Williams, _Account of the Captivity_, etc. His father also
notices the incident.
[66] The name Macquas (Mohawks) is always given to the Caughnawagas by
the elder Williams.
[67] The Iroquois are well known to have had superstitions in connection
with sexual abstinence.
[68] Williams remarks that the Seminary had also been burned three years
before. This was the fire of November, 1701. See "Old Régime in Canada,"
451.
[69] Note of Mr. George Sheldon.
[70] The elder Dudley speaks with great warmth of Courtemanche, who, on
his part, seems equally pleased with his entertainers. Young Dudley was
a boy of eighteen. "Il a du mérite," says Vaudreuil. _Dudley to
Vaudreuil, 4 July, 1705; Vaudreuil au Ministre, 19 Octobre, 1705._
[71] In 1878 Miss C. Alice Baker, of Cambridge, Mass., a descendant of
Abigail Stebbins, read a paper on John Sheldon before the Memorial
Association at Deerfield. It is the result of great research, and
contains much original matter, including correspondence between Sheldon
and the captives when in Canada, as well as a full and authentic account
of his several missions. Mr. George Sheldon has also traced out with
great minuteness the history of his ancestor's negotiations.
[72] The above is drawn mainly from extracts made by Miss Baker from the
registers of the Church of Notre Dame at Montreal. Many of the acts of
baptism bear the signature of Father Meriel, so often mentioned in the
narrative of Williams. Apparently, Meriel spoke English. At least there
is a letter in English from him, relating to Eunice Williams, in the
Massachusetts Archives, vol. 51. Some of the correspondence between
Dudley and Vaudreuil concerning exchange of prisoners will be found
among the Paris documents in the State House at Boston. Copies of these
papers were printed at Quebec in 1883-1885, though with many
inaccuracies.
[73] Stephen W. Williams, _Memoir of the Rev. John Williams_, 53.
_Sermon preached at Mansfield, August 4, 1741, on behalf of Mrs. Eunice,
the daughter of Rev. John Williams; by Solomon Williams, A.M._ _Letter
of Mrs. Colton, great granddaughter of John Williams_ (in appendix to
the _Memoir of Rev. John Williams_).
[74] I remember to have seen Eleazer Williams at my father's house in
Boston, when a boy. My impression of him is that of a good-looking and
somewhat portly man, showing little trace of Indian blood, and whose
features, I was told, resembled those of the Bourbons. Probably this
likeness, real or imagined, suggested the imposition he was practising
at the time. The story of the "Bell of St. Regis" is probably another of
his inventions. It is to the effect that the bell of the church at
Deerfield was carried by the Indians to the mission of St. Regis, and
that it is there still. But there is reason to believe that there was no
church bell at Deerfield, and it is certain that St. Regis did not exist
till more than a half-century after Deerfield was attacked. It has been
said that the story is true, except that the name of Caughnawaga should
be substituted for that of St. Regis; but the evidence for this
conjecture is weak. On the legend of the bell, see Le Moine, _Maple
Leaves, New Series_ (1873), 29; _Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc._,
1869, 1870, 311; _Hist. Mag. 2d Series_, ix. 401. Hough, _Hist. St.
Lawrence and Franklin Counties_, 116, gives the story without criticism.
[75] The earlier editions of this book follow, in regard to Samuel Gill,
the statements of Maurault, which are erroneous, as has been proved by
the careful and untiring research of Miss C. Alice Baker, to whose
kindness I owe the means of correcting them. Papers in the archives of
Massachusetts leave no doubt as to the time and place of Samuel Gill's
capture.
[76] Maurault, _Hist. des Abenakis_, 377. I am indebted to R. A. Ramsay,
Esq., of Montreal, for a paper on the Gill family, by Mr. Charles Gill,
who confirms the statements of Maurault so far as relates to the
genealogies.
John and Zechariah Tarbell, captured when boys at Groton, became
Caughnawaga chiefs; and one of them, about 1760, founded the mission of
St. Regis. Green, _Groton during the Indian Wars_, 116, 117-120.