USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36
What befel the minister's household, and how pluckily if not recklessly the parson displayed his mettle, his own narrative best portrays :
They came to my house in the beginning of the onset, and by their violent endeavors to break open doors and windows with axes and hatchets, awakened me out of sleep; on which I leaped out of bed, and, running towar s the door, perceived the enemy making their entrance into the house. I called to awaken two soldiers in the chamber, and returning toward my bedside for my arms, the enemy immediately broke into the room . . .. with painted faces and
173
The Sack of Deerfield
hideous acclamations. I reached up my hands to the bedtester for my pistol, uttering a short petition to God for everlasting mercies for me and mine on account of the merits of our glorified Redeemer, expecting a present passage through the valley of the shadow of death. . .. Taking down my pistol, I cocked it, and put it to the breast of the first Indian that came up. But my pistol missing fire, I was seized by three Indians, who disarmed me, and bound me naked, as I was in my shirt, and so I stood for near the space of an hour. Binding me, they told me they would carry me to Quebec. My pistol missing fire was an occasion of my life's being preserved ; since which I have also found it profitable to be crossed in my own will. ... I cannot relate the distressing care I had for my dear wife, who had lain in but a few weeks before; and for my poor children, and Christain neighbors. . .
The enemy fell to rifling the house, and entered in great num- bers into every room. I begged of God to remember mercy in the midst of judgment; that he would so far restrain their wrath as to prevent their murdering of us; that we might have grace to glorify his name whether in life or death; and, as I was able, committed our state to God. The enemies who entered the house . . . insulted over me awhile, holding up hatchets over my head, threa ning to burn all I had; but yet God, beyond expectation, made us in a great measure to be pitied. For though some were so cruel and barbarous as to take and carry to the door two of my children and murder them, as also a negro woman; yet they gave me liberty to put on my clothes, keeping me bound with a cord on one arm till I put on my clothes to the other; and then changing my cord, they let me dress myself, and then pinioned me again. Gave liberty to my dear wife to dress herself and our remaining children. About sun an hour high we were all carried out of the house for a march, and saw many of the houses of my neighbors in flames, perceiving the whole fort, one house excepted, to be taken. . .. Upon my parting from the town they fired my house and barn."
The one house excepted - of those in the upper part of the fort - was the Ensign Sheldon house. Its stout door was hacked with axes and cut partly through, but could not be broken in. Through a slit bullets were shot at
174
Connecticut River
random, and the ensign's wife was killed while sitting on a bed. The son and his bride jumped from a window of the east chamber in which Mrs. Sheldon was killed. Hannah, spraining her ankle in the fall, and unable to escape, unselfishly urged her husband to fly to Hatfield for aid. This he did, " binding strips of a woolen blanket about his naked feet as he ran." She was taken captive. Entrance to the house was at length effected by a back door, and those of its inmates remaining were captured. The ensign's little two-year old daughter tradition says was taken to the door and her brains dashed out on the door-stone. The house was set on fire as the Indians were leaving, but was saved from destruction. It remained for nearly a century and a half, a landmark of the tragedy known as the "Old Fort." The battered front door, sup- ported by the original door-posts - and with a print por- trait of de Rouville tacked upon its frame - is preserved in Memorial Hall hard by, with other relics of the Sack.
About the Benoni Stebbins house the fiercest battle was fought, and here the tide was turned against the enemy. Attacked later than some of the other houses, its inmates had some time to prepare for defence. The women in common with the men armed themselves, and stood with their guns behind the windows ready to meet the first onslaught. When it came the Indians were driven back with loss from the well directed fire. A second assault by a stronger force was alike repelled. A short respite was permitted the besieged while the enemy was capturing, killing, and plundering at other points. Then the enemy came in force upon them, nearly the whole army, - the French soldiers now taking a part, - and surrounded the house. Bullets rained upon it from every quarter. The brave garrison sent out well-aimed shots in return. Several
175
The Sack of Deerfield
more of the enemy fell, among them young Lieutenant de Rouville. In desperate attempts to set fire to the house a Macqua chief and several of his men lost their lives. This chief was the one against whose breast Parson Wil- liams had pressed his cocked pistol when seized in the parsonage. At length the assailants were driven to cover, -in the Sheldon house, which they now held, and the meeting-house. From these shelters the attack was re- newed. Still the garrison held out, and the beseigers were kept at bay till relief appeared. This came from a party of thirty men on horseback from the towns below who had hastened up in response to the alarm spread by young Sheldon, and by the smoke of the burning town. The siege had continued for three hours. Seven men and a few women in an unfortified house had successfully opposed " so great a number of French and Indians as three hund- red,"- the figures are Parson Williams's. Truly, as Shel- don the historian exclaims, " in all the wars of New England there is no more gallant act recorded than this defence."
Only one of the defenders was killed; but he was the leader, - Sergeant Stebbins. One of the fighting women, Mrs. Hoyt, was wounded ; and also one of the two soldiers who had been stationed in the house as guard. When the relief party arrived a portion of the besiegers had with- drawn and were busied in collecting plunder, in killing the settlers' stock, in securing provisions for the return march, and in taking captives to the rendezvous. A rush was made on those continuing the siege, the others were scattered, and all driven "pell mell out of the north gate, across the home lots, and North Meadows." The Stebbins house freed, the men of its valiant garrison joined in the chase, while the women and children ran to the cover of Captain Jonathan Wells's fortified house outside the fort. The Stebbins house
-
176
Connecticut River
was accidentally burned after its inmates had left. The chase, joined in also by Captain Wells and fifteen other Deerfield men with some garrison soldiers, was hotly con- tinued for about a mile, without order, each man fighting on his own hook. As the pursuers warmed up, coats were thrown off, then waistcoats, jackets, neckcloths. Captain Wells, fully alive to the danger of such a headlong pursuit of an Indian foe, tried hard to check it, but in vain; and at length the pursuers ran directly into the "inevitable ambush." Nine were killed, the others fled back in a panic.
At night, when the number of men gathered in the vil- lage from other towns had increased to about eighty, an immediate renewal of pursuit and attack was urged. But the difficulties in the way made successful result appear out of the question. The snow was three feet deep and impassable without snowshoes; and of these there was scant supply. It was probable that the enemy could not be caught up with and attacked before daylight. If the approach of a rescue party were discovered they might and probably would at once massacre the captives. Such reasoning finally prevailed, and the scheme was re- luctantly abandoned. During the following day Connecti- cut men, from farther down the River, began to arrive, coming in small parties, on horseback, till by nightfall the total of able-bodied men present had increased to two hund- red and fifty. Pursuit again was proposed. Now, how- ever, the weather had changed; a warm rain had begun to fall, softening the snow and ice, and rendering travel hazardous. So this second plan had to be given up. Meanwhile the dead lying in the village were buried (in a common grave in the old graveyard on Academy Lane, leading along the lower side of the Common) ; and remnants
-
--
--
C
I
por
L
177
The Sack of Deerfield
of the property of the remaining inhabitants left by the de- spoilers - strayed cattle, hogs, and sheep - were collected. Then a garrison of thirty or more men was formed under Captain Wells, and established in his fortified house; and those from other towns returned sadly to their own homes. There remained of Deerfield folk twenty-five men, with as many women, and seventy-five children, forty three under ten.
Of the town's two hundred and sixty-eight inhabitants before the Sack, all but one hundred and twenty-six were either killed or in the hands of the enemy on the cruel march of three hundred miles through the wilderness.
After the Sack the few survivors left in Deerfield re- solved to abandon the place. But Colonel Samuel Par- tridge, the military commander in the Valley, forbade them to leave. Soldiers were brought in from below and it was made a military station. The able-bodied men of the village were impressed as soldiers in the queen's service and the non-combatants were sent off to the lower towns. The impressed men were to labor in the fields by turns three days out of five. This was done at the peril of their lives, for the woods "were full of lurking Indians watching chances for spoil," and raids were of frequent occurrence. The enemy also continued at intervals to swoop down from Canada in force upon the frontiers. Near the middle of May following the Sack, Pascommuck, a fortified outlying hamlet of Northampton, was surprised by a band of French and Indians led by Sieur de Montingy, and the whole lot of settlers there, thirty-seven men, women, and child- ren, were captured and hurried off on the march for Canada. A company of horsemen speedily in pursuit caught the enemy not far on their up-river journey, but
178
Connecticut River
with direful results; for the approach of their pursuers " caused them to nock all the Captives on the head save five or six. Three they carried to Canada with them, the others escaped; and about seven of those nocked on the head recovered, ye rest died." The leader of the pursuers, Captain John Taylor, of Northampton, was killed.
Captain de Montingy had been sent down by de Vaudreuil, after the triumphant return of Hertel de Rou- ville, ostensibly to avenge some English wrongs upon a northern tribe, in pursuance of de Vaudreuil's original policy of fostering the savage flame against the English ; and upon his return with the report of this slaughter, which " wonderfully lifted up " the Indians "with pride," de Vaudreuil resolved "to lay desolate all the places on the Connecticut River " at a single stroke. To this end he sent forth an army of seven hundred Indians and one hundred and twenty-five French soldiers under Captain de Beaucours, with several Jesuits in the train. "This army went away in such a boasting and triumphing manner," wrote Parson Williams upon witnessing the de- parture during his captivity, "that I had great hopes God would discover and disappoint their design." They were disappointed, and they "turned back ashamed." De Vaudreuil's inadequate explanation of the failure of the expedition, made in his home report, was that " a French soldier deserted within a day's journey of the enemy," whereupon a panic " seized the minds of our Indians to such a degree that it was impossible for Sieur de Beaucours to prevent their retreating." Sheldon's more reasonable view is that they probably found the River towns too much on the alert for a surprise, and they had "no stomach for an open attack." They doubtless also were affected by accounts of the performance of a scouting party, composed
-
179
The Sack of Deerfield
of Caleb Lyman of Northampton and a few Connecticut Indian allies, twenty miles below the general Indian ren- dezvous of Cowass on the Great Ox-bow of the River in Newbury, Vermont side. This was the destruction of an Indian camp and the indiscriminate scalping of its occu- pants, women with the men, which brought about the abandonment of Cowass and the flight of its Indians Canada-ward. But so long as this army hovered about the frontiers its scouts harassed the outlying towns below Deerfield, as far down as Springfield.
Deerfield ceased to be the frontier town after the close of Queen Anne's War, Northfield becoming the outermost settlement in 1714, when its long deserted lands were per- manently reoccupied.
.
XIV
The "Redeemed Captive's " Story
Journey of the Deerfield Band as described by Parson Williams - His last Walk with his Wife -Their tender Parting - The Gentle Lady soon Slain - Her Grave in the Old Deerfield Burying-ground - Other Captives Killed on the Hard March -The Minister's Faith in the Practical Value of Prayer - The first Sunday out : Service of Sermon and Song - Canadian experi- ences - The Minister's Wrestlings with the " Papists " - Fate of his Chil- dren - A Daughter becomes a Chief's Wife-The "Lost Dauphin of France."
F the march of the Deerfield captives of 1704, its hardships, perils, and tragedies, we have the minutest particulars in the minister's unique account in his "Re- deemed Captive Returning to Zion," supplemented by the journal of his son Stephen, then a lad of about eleven. The forlorn company were gathered together and prepared for the march at the rendezvous at the foot of the moun- tain where the enemy had made ready for the attack upon the town. More than half of the one hundred and twelve, Sheldon says, were under eighteen years of age; forty of them not over twelve, and twelve under five. One of the latter, a " suckling child," was killed before the march began. All were provided with moccasins in place of their shoes. As they ascended the bluff the unhappy band gazed back at the smoke of the fires, beholding " the awful desolation of Deerfield." Twenty-two of them were to fall under the cruel tomahawk, or perish from exposure or hunger on the march. Two were to have the good fortune of escaping. Only sixty were to return to their friends.
180
The " Redeemed Captive's " son, Stephen Williams. Minister of Longmeadow for sixty-six years (1716-1782).
1
181
The " Redeemed Captive's " Story
The rest were to adopt Indian or French habits ; some were to intermarry with their captors ; some to enter the Catholic religious orders in Canada.
" We travelled not far the first day," runs the minis- ter's narrative. "When we came to our lodging-place the first night [in a swamp on Greenfield meadows] they dug away the snow and made some wigwams, cut down some small branches of the spruce-tree to lie down on, and gave the prisoners something to eat ; but we had little appetite. I was pinioned and bound down that night; and so I was every night whilst I was with the army. Some of the enemy who brought drink with them from the town fell to drinking, and in their drunken fit they killed my negro man. In the night an Englishman made his escape; in the morning I was called for, and ordered by the general [Rouville] to tell the English that if any more made their escape they would burn the rest of the prisoners." The minister's "master" thus far on the march - one of the survivors of the three Macquas who had first seized him in the parsonage and who held him as their especial prize - would not permit him to speak with any of the prisoners. But on the morning of the second day he passed to his other "master," who was so lenient as to give him the blessed privilege of walking for a while with his wife when they overtook the poor lady dragging her weak limbs through the trackless snow. Then follows this pathetic passage :
"On the way we discoursed of the happiness of those who had a right to a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens; and God for a father and friend ; as also, that it was our reasonable duty quietly to submit to the will of God, and to say, ' the will of the Lord be done.' My wife told me her strength of body began to fail, and that I must expect to part with her ; saying she hoped God
182
Connecticut River
would preserve my life, and the life of some if not all of our children with us; and commended to me, under God, the care of them. She never spake any discontented word as to what had befallen us, but with suitable expressions justified God in what had happened. We soon made a halt, in which time my chief surviving master came up, upon which I was put upon marching with the foremost; and so made my last farewell of my dear wife, the desire of my eyes, and companion in many mercies and afflictions. Upon our separation from each other we asked for each other grace sufficient for what God should call us to do. After our being parted from one another she spent the few remaining minutes of her stay in reading the Holy Scriptures."
Poor lady indeed ! but rich in sweet virtues and simple faith. Very soon after this exalted parting she came to the death she had foreseen. In crossing Green River, through which all were compelled to wade, "the water being above knee-deep, the stream very swift," she fell prostrate in the chilling current. Weakened pitifully by her fall, she staggered but little beyond when "the cruel and bloodthristy savage who took her slew her with his hatchet at one stroke." The place where she thus fell is close to the upper line of Greenfield at the foot of the Ley- den Hills, and is now marked by a monument erected by the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association of Deerfield. Word of her fate reached the minister while he was rest- ing at the top of the hill below which she was slain :
"No sooner had I overcome the difficulty of that ascent but I was permitted to sit down and be unburdened of my pack. I sat pitying those who were behind, and entreating my master to let me go down and help my wife; but he refused and would not let me stir from him. I asked each of the prisoners, as they passed by me, after her [and so got the awful tidings of her taking off]. And yet such was the hardheartedness of the adversary that my tears were reckoned to me as a reproach. My loss and the loss of my children
183
The "Redeemed Captive's " Story
was great; our hearts were so filled with sorrow that nothing but the comfortable hopes of her being taken away in mercy to herself from the evils we were to see, feel, and suffer under . . . could have kept us from sinking under at that time. . . . We were again called upon to march, with a far heavier burden on my spirits than on my back."
Subsequently Deerfield men ranging this country after the sad procession had long passed, found the body of Eunice Williams, and bringing it back to the village gave it decent burial in the old graveyard near the common grave of the earlier victims of the Sack. To-day her grave is seen beside that of her husband, under boughs of arbor- vitæ, with a headstone thus inscribed: "Here lyeth the Body of Mrs Eunice Williams, the Vertuous & desirable Consort of the Revnd Mr John Williams & Daughter to ye Revnd Mr Eleazer and Mrs Esther Mather of Northampton. She was Born Augt 2, 1664, and fell by the rage of ye Barbarous Enemy March 1, 1703-4. Prov : 31, 28. Her Children arise up & Call her Blessed." Under forty years of age, the gentle lady had been the mother of eleven child- ren, six of whom survived her.
The march continued along the west side country fol- lowing an Indian trail northeasterly, through the present Massachusetts towns of Leyden and Bernardstown, and Vernon over the Vermont line, to Brattleborough and the mouth of West River, when the Connecticut's frozen sur- face was taken. The camp for the second night was set in Bernardstown. Before the company were halted for this night two more had been killed, - an infant at the breast, and a little girl. Mr. Williams had also been threatened by an Abenaki who talked with his master about taking his scalp. But the master promised him that he would not be killed. At this camp a more equal dis-
184
Connecticut River
tribution of the captives among the Indians was made, while the minister and others, stript of their good clothes, which the Indians sold to the French soldiers, were obliged to don the Frenchmen's coarser and dirtier garments. From Stephen Williams they took the " silver buttons and buckles which I had on my shirt." While here also the captives had a fresh alarm. Observing several of the savages peeling bark from trees, and acting strangely, they apprehended that some of them were to be burned. But the minister calmed their fears with the assurance that he was " persuaded that" God " would prevent such severities." As it happened these severities were not re- sorted to, but another unhappy woman, who "being near the time of her travail was wearied with her journey," was killed.
From the rendezvous at the mouth of West River, where the sleds with the teams of dogs were taken, the march up the Connecticut was made with greater haste, for a thaw threatened the break-up of the ice. Several of the children were drawn by the Indians on the sleds with their wounded and their packs. For some hours the company travelled through slush and water up to the ankles. Near night Mr. Williams became very lame, from an ankle which he had wrenched not long before his cap- ture. And now there came to him one of several experi- ences on the journey that satisfied his believing soul of the practical value of prayer : " I thought, and so did others, that I should not be able to hold out to travel far. I lifted up my heart to God, my only refuge, to remove my lameness and carry me through with my children and neighbors if he judged it best; however, I desired God would be with me in my great change if he called me by such a death to glorify him; and that he would take care
185
The "Redeemed Captive's " Story
of my children and neighbors, and bless them: and within a little space of time I was well of my lameness, to the joy of my friends who saw so great an alteration in my travelling." Others, however, were less fortunate. For the next day the speed was so great that four women became tired out and they were forthwith slain. Stephen's diary records of this time, "they killed near a dozen of women and children, for their manner was if any loitered to kill them."
On the first Sunday of the tragic journey Bellows Falls had been passed and the mouth of Williams River reached. Here the whole company rested for that day, and the minister was permitted to hold that Christian service under the wintry sky, with the dusky heathen girding his shat- tered congregation, which is commemorated in this river's name. Mr. Williams rose grandly to the occasion. He prayed with his stricken people, and preached them a ser- mon, taking for his text "Lam. 1. 18: 'The Lord is right- eous, for I have rebelled against his commandments : hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow : my virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.'" Then, at the call of the Indians to " sing us one of Zion's songs," he and the congregation bravely lifted up their sad voices in a familiar hymn; and some of their dusky auditors were fain to upbraid them because " our singing was not so loud as theirs." Mr. Williams reflects mournfully upon the difference between the Indians' and the Papists' treatment of them in respect to freedom of worship. "When," he writes, " the Macquas and Indians were chief in power we held this revival in our bondage, to join together in the worship of God, and encourage one another to a patient bearing the indignation of the Lord till he should plead our cause. When we arrived at New France we were for-
186
Connecticut River
bidden praying one with another, or joining together in the service of God." But their revival had no influence upon the policy of their captors. On the next day's march two women becoming too faint to travel were despatched. The day following occurred another pathetic parting, with an exhibition of the wonderful fortitude as well as faith of the women of this captive band :
" In the morning before we travelled one Mary Brooks, a pious young woman, came to the wigwam where I was and told me she desired to bless God who had inclined the heart of her master to let her come and take her farewell of me. Said she, 'by my falls on the ice yesterday I injured myself causing a miscarriage this night, so that I am not able to travel far : I know they will kill me to-day; but,' says she, ' God has (praise be his name !) by his spirit, with his word, strengthened me to my last encounter with death,' and so mentioned to me some places of scripture seasonably sent in for her support. 'And,' says she, ' I am not afraid of death; I can through the grace of God cheerfully submit to his will. Pray for me,' said she, at parting, 'that God would take me to himself.' Accordingly she was killed that day."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.