Once, in the days of Indian attacks on the small English
settlements in Connecticut, a family of children had a narrow
escape from capture by the savages. A party of Indians on the
warpath passed near their home while their father and elder
brothers were away working in the fields with the neighbors. It
was the custom in those dangerous times for men to work together
in companies, going from one man's fields and meadows to
another's, and for greater safety they carried their firearms
with them. They stacked the guns on the edge of the field with a
sentinel to watch them and keep a lookout for possible Indians.
Sometimes it was a boy who did this sentry duty, standing on a
stump like a sentry in a box.
There was no one left at home that day but a girl fourteen years
old and her four younger brothers. The mother had died not long
before and the little sister was caring for the family. All
unconscious that any Indians were near, she went down to the
spring for water. As she lifted the full pail she caught sight of
a dark, painted face peering at her from a thicket on the edge of
the clearing. She dropped the pail at once and ran as fast as she
could to the house, calling to the boys to run in too and help
her close the heavy door. Doors were protected then by a thick
wooden bar across them on the inside. The children hurried in
and, working together, they got the bar in position before the
Indians reached the house. But the two halves of the door yielded
a little, just enough to let the edge of a tomahawk through,
which hacked away at the wooden bar while the children stood
watching, paralyzed with fear. Fortunately their own cries as
they ran toward the house had reached the men in the fields, who
dropped their scythes, seized their guns, and drove off the
Indians. But the bar was half cut through before help reached the
terrified children.
Stories like this one, and others with less happy endings, are
common, not only in the written history of Connecticut, but in
the unwritten traditions of Connecticut families. Whenever there
was trouble with the Indians the settlers were exposed to these
dangers. In the long wars between France and England for the
possession of America, the Indians were often allies of the
French, and then the English settlements suffered greatly from
their attacks.
In 1754, not long before the beginning of the last "French-and-Indian
War" (1756-63), there were several reasons why the people
of Windham, in the northeastern part of Connecticut, were
especially afraid of a surprise and attack by the Indians. Their
town was on the border of the colony and less protected than some
other places, and they also feared that they had lately given
offense to the Indians by planning a new town on what was known
as the "Wyoming territory" (in the present State of Pennsylvania).
These lands were still held by the Indians, but Connecticut claimed
them under her patent, and although the Windham people intended to
pay the Indians fairly for them they were not sure that the Indians
would not resent being forced to sell and be hostile to them in
consequence.
News soon reached them that war had begun in the: Ohio country
beyond the Susquehannah, and that an expedition against the
French had gone there from Virginia under the command of a young
officer named George Washington. They heard this name then for
the first time and with indifference, of course, not knowing that
it belonged to a man who would become very famous later, and be
honored as no other man in America has ever been honored; but
they understood at once that war-time was no time in which to
plant a new town. The company which had been formed for the
purchase of the Susquehannah lands, and which included such
well-known men as Colonel Eliphalet Dyer and Jedediah Elderkin,
therefore put off the undertaking until peace should come again.
[Illustration: THE WYOMING MASSACRE]
Meanwhile, people in Windham grew anxious about their own safety.
If the Indians were in truth offended, would not the French now
encourage them to take their revenge? That dread of the cruel
savages, which was continually in the minds of all Connecticut
settlers in those early days, increased in "Windham as rumors
reached there, from time to time, of uprisings among the Indians.
On the spring and summer evenings of that year breathless tales
were told about Indian attacks: old tales which, like the one at
the beginning of this story, had been handed down from earlier
days in Connecticut, and new tales of fresh atrocities on the
borders of the northern settlements in Maine and New Hampshire.
The children listened as long as they were allowed and then went
to bed trembling, seeing fierce painted faces and threatening
feather headdresses in every dark shadow. Older people asked each
other what would happen when the men were called out to serve in
the army and the women and children were left helpless at home.
"While the town was in this tense state of anxiety, those of its
inhabitants who lived near Windham Green were awakened out of
their sleep, one warm June night, by strange and unaccountable
noises." There began to be a rumble, rumble, rumble in the air,
and it grew louder and louder and seemed to be like drums
beating. A negro servant, coming home late, heard it first. The
night was still and black, and clouds hung low over the hot
hillsides. He thought it might be thunder, but there was no
lightning and no storm coming. He stopped and listened, and the
sounds grew stranger and wilder. Perhaps it was witches, or
devils; perhaps the Judgement Day was at hand! Terror seized him
and he ran home breathless and awoke his master.
By this time others, too, were awake; windows flew open and heads
were pushed out, and everybody asked, "What is it? What is it?"
Some hurried out half-dressed, and frightened women and crying
children gathered on the Green; they could not see one anothers'
white faces in the darkness. The beating of drums drew nearer and
nearer. "It is the French and Indians coming," cried the men; but
no one could tell from which direction the enemy was advancing;
the dreadful noise seemed to come from all sides at once, even
from overhead in the sky.
By and by they thought they could distinguish words in the
uproar. Deep bass voices thundered, "We'll have Colonel Dyer;
we'll have Colonel Dyer," and shrill high ones answered,
"Elderkin, too; Elderkin, too." As these were the names of the
two lawyers in Windham who had been most prominently connected
with the Wyoming plan,--the "Susquehannah Purchase" as it was
called,--every one was sure that a band of Indians bent on
revenge was approaching, and hearts beat fast in fear.
All night long the noises lasted, sometimes coming nearer,
sometimes dying away in the distance, and all night long the
people of Windham waited in dread and awful expectation. At last,
toward daybreak, the dark clouds slowly lifted and with the first
light in the east the sounds ceased. In the gray, early morning
men looked at each other and then crept silently back, each to
his own home. When the sun rose, clear and bright, and no French
and no Indians had appeared, Windham regained its courage, and
before the morning was over an explanation had been found of the
strange noises of the night.
The frogs in the millpond had had a great battle, or some
terrible catastrophe had overtaken them. Dead and dying frogs lay
on the ground all about the pond, and their gurgles and croaks
and clamor had made all the trouble and excitement. The story was
soon told all over Connecticut, and everybody laughed, and
ballads and songs were written about it, to the great mortification
of the people of Windham. Yet the danger that explained the
terror of that night was a real one in the history of many a
Connecticut town, and therefore the Frogs of Windham have their
legitimate place in Connecticut's story.