USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 18
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They had been lying in ambush near the house, and as Labaree was entering sprang up and pushed by him.
I screamed [the Narrative goes on] and begged my friends to ask for quarter. By this time they were all over the house; some up stairs, and some hauling my sister out of bed. Another had hold of me, and one was approaching Mr. Johnson, who stood in the middle of the floor to deliver himself up. But the Indian supposing he would make resistance and be more than his match, went to the door and brought three of his comrades, and the four bound him. I was led to the door fainting and trembling [she was then with child and within a few days of her time]. There stood my friend Labaree bound. Ebenezer Farnsworth, whom they found up cham- ber, they were putting in the same situation. And to complete the shocking scene, my three little children were driven naked to the place where I stood. On viewing myself I found that I too was naked. An Indian had plundered three gowns, who, on seeing my situation, gave me the whole. I asked another for a petticoat, but he refused it. After what little plunder their hurry would allow them to get was confusedly bundled up, we were ordered to march.
They were halted a few rods beyond the house, behind a rising ground, that the plunder might better be packed. While in the midst of this work an Indian, sent back pre- sumably to fire the house, returned on the run. Aaron Hosmer, who had hidden in the house and escaped capture, had given an alarm to the fort and a chase by the soldiers
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was feared. At this report the march was resumed in a panic. Mrs. Johnson was grasped by two savages, each at an arm, and rushed along through the thorny thickets. The loss of her shoe soon inflicted cruel cuts on her bare foot. The three men-prisoners with arms bound, and also Miriam Willard and the terrified children, were similarly conducted by their hideously painted masters.
So they proceeded for three miles, when a halt was made for breakfast, the danger of pursuit being apparently passed. It was learned afterward that no rescue force had been sent out, for Lieutenant Willard had dissuaded Cap- tain Stevens from despatching one lest the Indians, if at- tacked, should massacre the captives. The sylvan table was set forth with viands taken with the other loot from the house, -bread, raisins, and apples, - but the prisoners had no stomach for the repast. While the meal was in progress a riderless horse was sighted approaching, which the prisoners soon recognized as "Old Scoggin," Captain Stevens's horse. An Indian raised his weapon to shoot him, when Captain Johnson interceded. By gestures he plead that the beast be spared for the " white squaw " to ride, Mrs. Johnson's condition having become pitiable. Accordingly " Old Scoggin " was caught instead of slain, and Mrs. Johnson was mounted upon him on a saddle of bags and blankets. Her bleeding feet were covered with moccasins provided by her Indian "master," and with Labaree's stockings which that knightly soul had stripped from his own bruised feet and "presented " to her.
Thus they jogged on for seven miles when preparations were made to cross the River to the west side. Rafts of dry timber being constructed, Mrs. Johnson was put upon one of them, while her husband swam at its end and pushed it along; and Labaree swam the horse across. It being
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Windsor Bridge, Windsor-Mount Ascutney in the Distance.
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now late in the afternoon, a stop was made at the landing place for a supper of porridge cooked in Mrs. Johnson's kettles, which the Indians had brought with their plunder. After supper six or eight more miles were covered, Mrs. Johnson again riding the horse. The encampment for the night was established under the trees in Wethersfield be- low Ascutney's graceful height. When the prisoners lay down for rest they were ingeniously bound so that escape was impossible. " The men were made secure in having their legs put in split sticks, somewhat like stocks, and tied to the limbs of trees too high to be reached. My sister . . . must lie between two Indians, with a cord thrown over her, and passing under each of them. The little children had blankets, and I was allowed one for my use."
All were roused before sunrise, and after a break- fast of hot water gruel only, the signal "whoop " for the renewal of the march was sounded. Mrs. Johnson was lifted upon the horse, and Captain Johnson assigned to march by her side to hold her on, for she was now too weak to proceed unaided. When the procession had trav- elled on for an hour or two her supreme moment came: -
I was taken with the pangs of child-birth. The Indians signified that we must go on to a brook. When we got there they showed some humanity by making a booth for me. . .. My children were crying at a distance, where they were held by their masters, and only my husband and sister to attend me, - none but mothers can figure to themselves my unhappy posture. The Indians kept aloof the whole time. About ten o'clock a daughter was born. They then brought me some articles of clothing for the child, which they had taken from the house. My master looked into the booth and clapped his hands for joy, saying " two monies for me, two monies for me !"
I was permitted to rest for the remainder of the day. The Indians
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were employed in making a bier for the prisoners to carry me on and another booth for my lodging during night. They brought a needle and two pins and some bark to tie the child's clothes, which they gave my sister, and a large wooden spoon to feed it with. ... In the evening I was removed to the new booth.
The spot where this birth took place, and the site of the previous night's encampment, were identified in the town of Cavendish nearly half a century afterward, when the child had herself become a mother of children, and two inscribed stones were set up to indicate them. These tab- lets may yet be seen by the side of the main road lead- ing from Wethersfield through Cavendish to Reading. The actual birthplace is said to be about half a mile from the road, in the northeast corner of Cavendish.
At sunrise of the morning following the child's birth Mrs. Johnson was roused with the others, and when the usual breakfast of meal and water was over, she was shifted, with the infant at her breast, to the litter which the Indians had prepared. The march was then taken up, the men captives bearing the litter, Miriam Willard and the boy on Scoggin, and the two little girls each on the back of her master. When only about two miles on the way the wearied litter-bearers, weakened by the scant fare that had been their portion, broke down under their load. Thereupon the Indians by signs indicated that Mrs. Johnson must ride the horse or be left behind. Preferring this alternative to a miserable death alone in the forest, she was lifted to Scoggin's back in place of Miriam and the boy, while the kindly Labaree took the infant. In this order the party again started off at a "slow mournful pace." Once an hour the almost exhausted woman was taken from the horse and laid on the ground to rest. Thus her life was preserved through her second day of new
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motherhood. That night the party bivouacked at the head of Black River Pond. The supper, mainly of gruel, was enriched with the broth of a hawk which one of the Indians had killed. Through the next day, opening chill and foggy, they plodded on across miry plains and over steep and broken hills. Labaree still carried the infant and nourished it with occasional sips of water gruel. The next day was like its predecessor, " an unvaried scene of fatigue."
Now famine threatened the party. Two or three hunting bands sent out returned without game, and the last morsel of meal was gone. It was determined to sacrifice faithful old Scoggin. Accordingly at dusk of this day the horse was shot, and a few minutes after his flesh was broiling on the embers of a fire which the Indians had made with the help of punk that they carried in horns. While the hungry savages gorged themselves with these horse-steaks they offered the best parts to the captives, an act which " cer- tainly bordered on civility." And, says the narrative, "an epicure could not have catered nicer slices, nor in that situation served them up with more neatness." For Mrs. Johnson and the babe a broth was made, "which was rendered almost a luxury by the seasoning of roots." After this novel supper " countenances began to brighten ; those who had relished the meal exhibited new strength, and those who had only snuffed its effluvia confessed them- selves regaled. The evening was employed in drying and smoking what remained for future use." The next morn- ing's breakfast was a feast of soup made from the pounded marrow-bones of old Scoggin and flavored with "every root, both sweet and bitter, that the woods afforded." Each of the captives partook of as much of the soup as " his feelings would allow."
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At the start of this day's march Mrs. Johnson was obliged to walk. Her master tied her petticoats with bark " as high as he supposed would be convenient for walking," and ordered her to fall in line. "With scarce strength to stand alone " she stumbled on for about half a mile, with her little boy and three Indians, lagging behind the rest. Then losing power to move further, she dropped in a faint as one of the Indians was raising his hatchet over her head. Upon her return to consciousness she heard her master angrily assailing the savage for attempt- ing to kill his prize, and saw how her life had been spared.
Restarting, Captain Johnson helped her along for a few hours. Then faintness again overcame her. Another
council was held while she lay gasping on the ground. At length her master cut some bark from a tree and made a pack-saddle for her husband's back, and to this she was lifted. They marched onward the rest of this day, Captain Johnson staggering under his load, his bare feet lacerated by the rough path. Labaree still kept the infant. Farns- worth carried one of the little girls, and the other rode as before on her master's back. Miriam Willard, strong in her young girlhood, walked easily, keeping pace with her lusty master. That night the Indians made more horse- broth for supper. Another booth was built for the ex- hausted mother. Next morning she found herself greatly refreshed from a good night's sleep.
But further peril was in store for her. On this day's march she was made to ford a beaver-pond. When half way over, "up to the middle in the cold water," her strength failed and she became stiffened and motionless. Her hus- band was sent to her relief. Taking her in his arms he carried her across, and on the bank a fire was built at which she was warmed back to life. For the rest of this
Pine Grove on the River's Bank, near Hanover.
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day she again rode on the pack-saddle on her husband's back. Labaree still carried the infant and sustained her little life with bits of the horse-flesh which he would first chew and then put in the baby's mouth. On the af- ternoon of this day the party halted for a lunch of broiled duck, two savages sent out on a hunting scout having brought the fowl in as their sole bag. One of the branches of Otter Creek was then forded. In the passage Labaree, tripping in the swift current, nearly lost the infant. As she was floating down stream he saved her by catching a corner of her blanket and pulling her in. On the opposite bank proofs of the Indians' sagacity were found. On their journey down from the north they had killed a bear at this point. The entrails had been cleansed and filled with the fat of the animal, and suspended from the limb of a tree. Beside the tree also lay a bag of flour and some tobacco : all stores for use on the return journey. Now quite a sumptuous feast was set forth. The flour was made into a pudding with the bear's grease for a relishing sauce, and a rich broth seasoned with snake-root was prepared. The tobacco was shared with the men captives, and they derived what comfort they could in their sorry condition from an after-dinner smoke. With the close of the next day, however, famine again threatened, and the following morning's breakfast was of the scantiest. Still they were pressed on painfully till nightfall. Then at last the cruel tramp ended with their arrival at East Bay, on Lake Champlain. After supper from a ground-squirrel and some broth, all embarked in canoes for the voyage across the lake to Crown Point.
Fortune was now kind to them for four days. The French commander received them with much show of hospitality. They were provided with "brandy in profusion,
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a good dinner, and a change of linen." Mrs. Johnson's children were all decently clad, and the infant was so decked out in French raiment that her Puritan mother could not recognize the "strange thing." But on the fourth day their miseries were renewed with their return to their masters and the start on another journey. All were crowded in one little vessel and so made the passage to the St. John's fort, a hard voyage of three days. At this place they were politely entertained by the French commander as at Crown Point. The next morning they were off for Chambly. That night Mrs. Johnson lodged on a bed for the first time since her captivity. Next morning all were off in canoes for Sorel. On their arrival at nightfall, a kind friar took them into his house. The good monk cheered them in the morning with a relishing breakfast and " drank their better healths " in a brimming tumbler of brandy. That day they reached their destina- tion, - the Indian village of St. Francis, - where their masters belonged.
Their arrival here was signalled by a whirlwind of " whoops, yells, shrieks, and screams." With their mas- ters they were made to "run the gauntlet " between a double line of braves and squaws. But no hard blows were suffered, each receiving only a slight tap on the shoulder. Now they were finally separated, each master taking his prizes to his own quarters. Eventually all but the little boy, Sylvanus, were sold to Frenchmen. Mrs. Johnson's master being a hunter, exchanged her with much for- mality, for the boy whom he wanted to attend him on his hunting excursions. Her new master was the son-in-law of the grand sachem, and she with her infant was adopted into his family. The others were early taken to Montreal and sold there. Fortunately for them their purchasers
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were all " persons of great respectability." Captain John- son fell to a leading man. Susanna, the eldest of the two little girls, was bought by three affluent French maiden ladies ; and Polly, by the Mayor of Montreal for his wife's pleasure. Miriam Willard passed to good hands, being taken into the influential Du Quesne family. Labaree and Farnsworth both found easy masters, though they chafed as bondsmen.
Such was the situation of these captives when Captain Johnson was given a leave of absence on parole to return to New England for cash for their redemption. Before he started Mrs. Johnson and the babe had been bought by the Du Quesnes and were in Montreal near the others. Later, little Polly was traded for and restored to the mother. While at Montreal the infant was baptized and was given the names of Louisa, for Mme. Du Quesne, and Captive in token of the circumstances of her birth.
The Narrative goes on with details of the life in cap- tivity which extended through four years or more. Among other trying experiences there were prison hardships for Mrs. Johnson and her husband in Montreal and Quebec, for he broke his parole through detention in Massachusetts, curiously enough, as a suspected spy. So his lines were doubly hard. Mrs. Johnson with Captive and Polly was the first to be released. She got back to the Valley by the roundabout way of Europe, taking ship from Quebec for England. Captain Johnson was redeemed in the spring of 1758. Early the next summer he joined the expedi- tion against Ticonderoga at the head of a company, and soon afterward met his cruel fate, being killed in action. The same summer Sylvanus was restored to his mother. He was brought back to the Valley by Major (afterward General) Israel Putnam. He came with the redeemed
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Howe family, -Jemima Howe, the " Fair Captive " of Humphrey's Life of Putnam, and her children, who were captured at Fort Bridgman in Hinsdale, the year after the taking of the Johnsons. Sylvanus's four years of savage life had given him all the characteristics of the Indian. He could speak no English and only a little French, but in the language of the Indians was perfect. He could bend a bow and wing an arrow, and could brandish a tomahawk with the best of the braves. By degrees his Indian habits wore off. But to the day of his death, and he reached the age of eighty-four, he retained his attachment to the simple life of the forest. His latter years were spent in Walpole, and he was an expert salmon fisher about Bellows Falls. Susanna came back in the summer of 1760. She returned with her kinsfolk, Joseph Willard and family of Lancaster. These Willards, father, mother, and five children, had been captured at their home a few months earlier, and, taken to Canada, had reached Montreal only a few days before its surrender. Susanna was now quite a cultivated young woman, for the good sisters Jais- son had provided her a " polite education." She did not know her mother when they met, and could speak no English.
Mrs. Johnson returned to Charlestown in the autumn of 1759 and resumed her life on the same spot from which she and the rest had been taken. Three years later she married John Hastings, a worthy first settler at No. 4, and reared a second family of children. By her two mar- riages she had fourteen children in all. She lived to the age of eighty, and could count thirty-nine grandchildren. Of the daughters who had been in captivity with her, Susan married Captain Samuel Wetherbee, afterward an active soldier in the Revolution, and became the mother
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of fifteen children, among whom were five at two births. Polly married Colonel Timothy Bedell of Haverhill, up the River, who became a captain of rangers in the Revolution, and later a major-general in the New Hampshire militia. Though dying at the early age of thirty-seven, Polly bore several children. Captive married Colonel George Kimball of Charlestown. In 1798 they removed to Lower Canada and there the remainder of her life was spent. She had four children. Miriam Willard married the Rev. Phinehas Whitney, minister at Shirley, Massachusetts, for upward of half a century. She lived but seven years after her marriage, however, and left no children.
Labaree and Farnsworth both returned to Charlestown and resumed the farmer's life which they pursued in peace till they reached old age. Labaree escaped from bondage and suffered many hardships on his way back through the wilderness. Farnsworth was redeemed. Labaree upon his return took up a tract of three hundred acres two miles north of the village, and became the most northerly settler on the River in New Hampshire. He lived to the age of seventy-nine. Farnsworth took a farm in North Charles- town, and here was his home till his death in his seventy- eighth year.
So peacefully closes this romance of real life, only one of the many which the records of the Valley disclose abun- dant in thrilling detail and rich in "atmosphere."
In the old burying-ground of Charlestown the traveller may see a monument to the memory of Mrs. Johnson and her fellow captives. It was set up with quiet ceremony thirty-five years ago by descendants of the Johnsons and of worthy Peter Labaree.
The summer of 1755 was marked by raids of Indians
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from Canada swooping down the Valley to and below the Massachusetts line. They had become emboldened by the failure of the expedition of this season against Crown Point, and by the belief that the frontiers were more than usually exposed. About midsummer alarming news came to the Valley. Five hundred Indians were said to be col- lecting in Canada for an expedition to exterminate the whole white population along the River. Shortly before, Philip, a St. Francis sachem, had appeared in one village after another with friendly demonstrations and the pre- tence of need of provisions. It was afterward learned that he was a spy, to ascertain the state of defence.
The most serious raids, presumed to have been in con- nection with the plan of extermination, were toward the close of the summer. On their down journey the maraud- ers crossed the River to Charlestown, slaughtered a lot of the settlers' cattle, and carried off the flesh. Shortly after a band appeared below Bellows Falls at Walpole. Two settlers, Daniel Twichell and John Flynt, back on the hills getting out timber for oars, were attacked and killed. One was scalped ; the other cut open and his heart taken out and laid in pieces on his breast. This event made "a solemn impression " on the scattered settlers. They imagined that Twichell's spirit hovered over them crying for vengeance on the savages. A rock in the River off the Walpole meadows where he used to fish with un- failing success was given his name, and good luck came to the after-fishers at Twichell's Rock.
Another band, or perhaps the same one, appeared at Hinsdale and attacked a group of workers in the woods. Two were killed, a third escaped. A few days later, in the same settlement, Caleb Howe, Benjamin Gaffield, and Hilkiah Grout were ambushed while returning from the
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fields. Howe was killed. Gaffield was drowned in at- tempting to cross the River, and Grout escaped. The assailants made for Bridgman's Fort in which the families of these men were living. It was now dusk. Hearing footsteps and supposing their husbands were returning, the women opened the gate to receive them. Instead the savages with a whoop rushed in and captured them all. Fourteen women and children were thus taken, among them Jemima Howe, " The Fair Captive," Caleb Howe's wife, and her little ones, and marched to Canada.
Then came the attack in force upon Walpole and the siege of John Kilburn's house, with " Kilburn's Fight," of August 17, the most remarkable conflict in the Valley of this war. Here is its animated story, with a side story of the clever stratagem of Colonel Bellows outside the Bellows Fort.
The attacking party is said by the historians to have numbered fully four hundred. The Kilburn household embraced but six persons. These were John Kilburn, the master, a virile man of about fifty; his wife Ruth, a sturdy young matron ; their son John, in his eighteenth year ; their daughter Hetty, a fine strapping girl; and one Peak, presumably a farm helper, with his son, about young John Kilburn's age. The dwelling was a stout log-house surrounded by palisades. It stood above the meadows under the shadow of Falls Mountain, now Kilburn Peak, named for its hero. It was about a mile and a half dis- tant from Colonel Bellows's fort.
At about noon Kilburn and Peak and the two youths were returning home to dinner from their work in the field, when one of them discovered the red legs of Indians among some alders, " as thick as grasshoppers." Quietly but rapidly gaining the house where Mrs. Kilburn and
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Hetty, unaware of danger, were preparing the noon meal, they bolted the door and made ready for defence. In a few minutes they saw a line of savages crawling up a bank east of the house. As the red men crossed a foot-path one by one, one hundred and ninety-seven of them were counted by the group within. About the same number, it is said, remained in ambush near the mouth of Cold River and later joined in the fight.
Meanwhile, or earlier, an attempt had been made by part of the band to waylay and cut off Colonel Bellows and thirty of his men who were at the mill about a mile east of Kilburn's. In this enterprise, however, they were thwarted by the colonel's ingenious tactics. He and the men, each with a bag of flour on his back, had left the mill and were on their way to the Bellows Fort when their dogs began to growl, thus betraying the neighborhood of Indians, though none was seen. Thereupon the colonel directed the men to throw off the bags, get down on all fours, crawl to a rise of land near by, and upon reaching the top spring to their feet all together, give one whoop, then instantly drop again out of sight in the sweet-fern that covered the bank. This manœuvre had the expected effect in drawing the savages from their ambush. At the sound of the whoop, believing themselves discovered, the whole body rose from the bushes among which they had lain in a semi-circle around the path which the colonel's men were to have followed. At their showing the hidden party fired a volley, and this so disconcerted them that, without a shot from their side, they darted back into the bushes and disappeared. Then the colonel's party took the shortest cut for the fort, and there prepared for a siege. But none came.
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