USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Groton > Historical sketch of Groton, Massachusetts. 1655-1890 > Part 3
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night the savages scattered throughout the neighbor- hood, and the first volley of shot on the morning of the 13th was a signal for the general burning of the town ; and in this conflagration the first meeting- house of Groton was destroyed, together with about forty dwelling-houses. This building, erected at the cost of many and great privations, was the pride of the inhabitants. With its thatched roof, it must have burned quickly ; and in a very short time nothing was left but a heap of smoking embers. Although it had never been formally dedicated to religious worship, it had been consecrated in spirit to the service of God by the prayers of the minister and the devotion of the congregation. In this assault John Nutting's garri- son was taken by stratagem. The men defending it had been drawn out by two Indians, apparently alone, when the savages in ambush arose and killed one of the men, probably John Nutting himself, and wounded three others. At the same time the garrison- house, now defenceless, was attacked in the rear and the palisades pulled down, allowing the enemy to take possession. The women and children, compris- ing those of five families, escaped to Captain Parker's house, situated between James's Brook and the site of the Town-House.
There is a family tradition, worthy of credence, that John Nutting was killed while defending his log- house fort during Philip's War. His wife's name appears a few months later in the Woburn town- records as " Widow Nutting," which is confirmatory of the tradition.
Several printed accounts of Philip's War appeared
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very soon after it was ended, and these furnish all that is known in regard to it. At that time there was no special correspondent on the spot to get the news ; and, as the means for communication were limited, these narratives differ somewhat in the details, but they agree substantially in their general statements.
With the exception of Hubbard's Narrative, the contemporary accounts of this assault on the town are all short ; and I give them in the words of the writers, for what they are worth. The first is from " A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in Newe England," by Increase Mather, published in the year 1676. This account, one of the earliest in print, is as follows :
" March the 10th. Mischief was done, and several lives cut off by the Indians this day, at Groton and at Sudbury. An humbling Providence, inasmuch as many Churches were this day Fasting and Praying. (Page 23.)
" March 13. The Indians assaulted Groton, and left but few houses standing. So that this day also another Candlestick was removed out of its place. One of the first houses that the enemy destroyed in this place, was the House of God, h. e. which was built, and set apart for the celebration of the publick Worship of God.
" When they had done that, they scoffed and blasphemed, and came to Mr. Willard (the worthy Pastor of the Church there) his house (which being Fortified, they attempted not to destroy it) and tauntingly, said, What will you do for a house to pray in now we have burnt your Meeting- house ? Thus hath the enemy done wickedly in the Sanctuary, they have burnt up the Synagogues of God in the Land ; they have cast fire into the Sanctuary ; they have cast down the dwelling place of his name to the Ground. O God, how long shall the Adversary approach ? shall the Enemy Blaspheme thy Name for ever ? why withdrawest thou thine hand, even thy right hand ? pluck it out of thy bosome." (Page 24.)
Several accounts of the war appeared in London in 1676, only a few months after the destruction of this town. They were written in New England, and
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sent to Old England, where they were at once published in thin pamplets. The authors of them are now unknown, but undoubtedly they gathered their materials from hearsay. At that time Indian affairs in New England attracted a good deal of at- tention in the mother country. One of these pamphlets is entitled : " A True Account of the most, Consider- able Occurrences that have hapned in the Warre between the English and the Indians in New Eng- land, as it hath been communicated by Letters to a Friend in London." This narrative says :
" On the 13th of March, before our Forces could return towards our Parts, the Indians sent a strong party, and assaulted the Town of Growton, about forty miles North-west from Boston, and burn'd all the deserted Houses ; the Garrison'd Houses, which were about ten, all escaped but one, which they carryed, but not the English in it; for there was but one slain and two wounded." (Page 2.)
Another account, entitled : "A New and Further Narration of the State of New England, being a con- tinued account of the Bloudy Indian-war," gives the following version :
" The 14th of March the savage Enemy set upon a Considerable Town called Groughton, and burnt Major Wilberds House first (who with his family removed to Charls Town) and afterwards destroyed sixty Five dwelling-houses more there, leaving but six houses standing in the whole Town, which they likewise furiously attempted to set on fire ; But being fortified with Arms and Men as Garisons, they with their shot, killed several of the Enemy, and prevented so much of their designe ; Nor do we hear that any person on our side was here either slain or taken captive." (Page 4.)
A few pages further on it says : " Grantham and Nashaway all ruined but one house or two." (Page 14.) Few persons would recognize this town under the disguise of Grantham.
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A third one of these London pamphlets, bearing the title of " News from New England," says :
" The 7th of March following these bloody Indians march't to a con- siderable Town called Croaton where they first set fire to Major Willards house, and afterwards burnt 65 more, there being Seaventy two houses at first so that there was left standing but six houses of the whole Town." (Page 4.)
The details of the burning of the town are found in " A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England," written by the Reverend William Hubbard, and printed in the year 1677. It is the fullest history of the events relating to Groton ap- pearing near the time; and very likely many of the facts were obtained from the Reverend Mr. Willard. The account is not as clear as might be desired, and contains some glaring discrepancies, but it is too long to be quoted here.
The Indians were a cowardly set and never at- tacked in open field. They never charged on works in regular column, but depended rather on craft or canning to defeat their adversary. The red hell- hounds-as they were sometimes called by our pious forefathers-were always ready to attack women and children, but afraid to meet men. The main body of the savages passed the night following the final at- tack in "an adjacent valley," which cannot now be easily identified, but some of them lodged in the gar- rison-house, which they had taken; and the next morning, after firing two or three volleys at Captain Parker's house, they departed. They carried off a prisoner,-John Morse, the town clerk,-who was ransomed a short time afterward. The following reference to him in an undated letter, written by the
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Rev. Thomas Cobbet to the Rev. Increase Mather, shows very nearly the time of his release :
"May ye 12th [1676] Good wife Diuens [Divoll] and Good wife Ketle vpon ransom paid, came into concord. & vpon · like ransom presently [a]fter John Moss of Groton & lieftenant Carlors [Kerley's] Daughter of Lancaster were set at liberty & 9 more wtout ransom." (Mather Manuscripts in the Prince Collection, at the Boston Public Library, I. 76.)
The ransom for John Morse was paid by John Hubbard, of Boston, and amounted to "about five pounds." Morse's petition to the Council, to have Hubbard reimbursed, is found among the Massachu- setts Archives (LXIX. 48).
Fortunately the loss of life or limb on the part of the inhabitants of the town was small, and it is not known that more than three persons were killed- of whom one was Timothy Cooper, and another, with- out doubt, John Nutting-and three wounded; two were made prisoners, of whom one escaped from the savages and reached Lancaster, and the other, John Morse, was ransomed.
The lot of these early settlers was indeed hard and bitter ; they had seen their houses destroyed and their cattle killed, leaving them nothing to live on. Their alternative now was to abandon the plantation, which they did with much sadness and sorrow. The settle- ment was broken up, and the inhabitants scattered in different directions among their friends and kindred. In the spring of 1678, after an absence of two years, they returned and established anew the little town on the frontier.
In the autumn of 1879 the town of Groton erected a monument to commemorate the site of the meeting-
3
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house which was burned during this assault. It bears the following inscription :
"NEAR THIS SPOT STOOD THE FIRST MEETING HOUSE OF GROTON BUILT IN 1666 AND BURNT BY THE INDIANS 13 MARCH 1676"
The monument, in connection with two others relating to the history of the town, was dedicated with appropriate exercises in the Town Hall on Feb. 20, 1880, when an address was delivered by Dr. Sam- uel A. Green, which was subsequently printed.
After Philip's War the colonists were at peace with the Indians, but it was a suspicious kind of peace. It required watching and a show of strength to keep it; there was no good-will between the na- tive race and the white intruders. The savages at best made bad neighbors ; they were treacherous and addicted to drink. The following entries in the town records show that they were a shiftless and drunken set :
" Jnnenary 31 1681 It [was] agred upon by the select men That the Indanes shall be warned out of the Toune forth with and if the shall neiglect the warning and if any of them be taken drounke or in drinke or with drinke Then these parsons ar to be sezed and brout be foure the select men either by constable or by any other parson and be poun- esed accordin as the law doth direct and the Informar shall be sattised for his paines"
" March 28 1682 two Indian squaws being apprehended In drinke & with drinke brought to ye select men one squaw Nehatchechin swaw being drouncke was sentanced to receive & did receive ten stripes the other John Nasquuns sway was sentanced to pay 3º 4ª cash and loose her two quart bottle and the Liquour In it awarded to Sargut Laken who prized them."'
During this period the Indians began again to be
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troublesome, and for the next fifteen or twenty years continued their occasional depredations by murdering the inhabitants, burning their houses, destroying their crops or killing their cattle. Into these garrison-houses the neighboring families gath- ered at night, where they were guarded by armed men who warned the inmates of any approach of danger.
At times troops were stationed here by the Colonial authorities for the protection of the town; and the orders and counter orders to the small garrison show too well that danger was threatening. In the mean - while King William's War was going on; and the enemy had material and sympathetic aid from the French in Canada. The second attack on the town came in the summer of 1694, and the accounts of it I prefer to give in the words of contemporary writers. Sometimes there are discrepancies, but, in the main, such narratives are trustworthy.
The attack was made on Friday, July 27th, and Cot- ton Mather, in his " Magnalia," thus refers to it :
" Nor did the Storm go over so : Some Drops of it fell upon the Town of Groton, a Town that lay, one would think, far enough off the Place where was the last Scene of the Tragedy.
" On July 27. [1694,] about break of Day Groton felt some surprising Blows from the Indian Hatchets. They began their Attacks at the House of one Lieutenant Lakin, in the Out-skirts of the Town; but met with a Repulse there, and lost one of their Crew. Nevertheless, in other Parts of that Plantation (when the good People had been so tired out as to lay down their Military Watch) there were more than Twenty Persons killed, and more than a Dozen carried away. Mr. Gershom Ho- bart, the Minister of the Place, with part of his Family, was Remark- ably preserved from falling into their Hands, when they made them- selves the Masters of his House ; though they Took Two of his Chil- dren, whereof the one was Killed, and the other some time after hap- pily Rescued out of his Captivity." (Book. VII. page 86.)
1154042
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Governor Hutchinson, in his "History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," published during the following century, writes :
" Having crossed Merrimack, on the 27th of July [1694] they fell upon Groton, about 40 miles from Boston. They were repulsed at Lakin's garrison house, but fell upon other houses, where the people were off their guard, and killed and carried away from the vicinity about forty persons. Toxus's two nephews were killed by his side, and he had a dozen bullets through his blanket, according to Charlevoix, who adds that he carried the fort or garrison and then went to make spoil at the gates of Boston ; in both which facts the French account is erroneous." (II. 82.)
In the assault of July, 1694, the loss on the part of the inhabitants was considerably greater than when the town was destroyed in the attack of 1676. It is said that the scalps of the unfortunate victims were given to the Count de Frontenac, Governor of Can- ada. A large majority, and perhaps all, of the pris- oners taken at this time were children. The Indians had learned that captives had a market value; and children, when carried off, could be more easily guarded than adults. It was more profitable for the savages to exchange prisoners for a ransom, or sell them to the French, than it was to kill them. It is now too late to give the names of all the sufferers, but a few facts in regard to them may be gathered from fragmentary sources. The families that suffered the severest lived, for the most part, in the same gen- eral neighborhood, which was near the site of the first meeting-house. Lieut. William Lakin's house, where the fight began, was situated in the vicinity of Chicopee Row.
The following list of casualties, necessarily incom-
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plete and in part conjectural, is given as an approxi- mation to the loss sustained by the town :
Killed.
Captured. 3
John Longley's family
7
Rev. Mr. Hobart's "
1
1
John Shepley's
4 ?
1
James Parker, Jr.'s "
2
3 ?
Alexander Rouse's "
2
1
Mr. Gershom Hobart, the minister, whose house was captured in this assault, lived where the Baptist meeting-house now stands. One of his boys was killed, and another, Gershom, Jr., was carried off. There is a tradition extant that a third child was con- cealed under a tub in the cellar, and thus saved from the fury of the savages. Judge Sewall writes in his diary, under the date of May 1, 1695 :
"Mr. Hobarts son Gershom is well at a new Fort a days Journey above Nerigawag [Norridgewock], Masters name is Nassacombêwit, a good Master, and Mistress. Master is chief Captain, now Bambazeen is absent."
(" Massachusetts Historical Collections," V. Fifth series, 403, 404.)
According to a letter written by the Reverend John Cotton to his wife at Plymouth, and dated " Election-night, Boston " (May 29, 1695), he was res- cued from captivity during that month. The inscrip- tion on the Shepley monument says that "the Indi- ans massacred all the Sheples in Groton save a John Sheple 16 years old who the[y] carried captive to Canada and kept him 4 years, after which he returned to Groton and from him descended all the Sheples or Shepleys in this Vicinity ;" but there is no record to show how many there were in this family. Mr. Butler, in his History (page 97), makes substantially
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the same statement, but does not mention any num- ber. In my list it is placed at five, which is conjec- tural ; of this number probably four were slain. Shepley lived near where the Martin's Pond Road starts off from the North Common. The knowledge which the boy John obtained of their language and customs, while a prisoner among the Indians, was of much use to him in after-life. Tradition says that, when buying furs and skins of them, he used to put his foot in one scale of the balance instead of a pound weight. In the summer of 1704, while he and thir- teen other men were reaping in a field at Groton, they were attacked by a party of about twenty Indians. After much skirmishing Shepley and one of his com- rades, Butterfield by name, succeeded in killing one of the assailants, for which act they were each granted four pounds by the Provincial authorities. He was the direct ancestor of the late Honorable Ether Shepley, of Portland, formerly chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine, and his son, the late Gen. George Foster Shep- ley, formerly a justice of the Circuit Court of the First Circuit of the United States. John's petition to the General Court, asking that an allowance be made for this service, and giv- ing the particulars of the attack, is found among the Massachusetts Archives (XXX, 496, 497) at the State- House.
Among the " Nams of thos Remaining Still in hands of the french at Canada," found in a document dated October, 1695, are those of "Lidey Langly gerl" and "Jnº Shiply boy." In this list the resi-
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dences of both these children are incorrectly written, Lydia's being given as Dover, New Hampshire, and John's as Oyster River. They both belonged in this town, and were taken at the assault of July 27, 1694. The name of Thomas Drew appears in the same list as of Groton, which is a mistake, as he was of Oyster River. (Archives, XXXVIII. A 2.)
This expedition against Groton was planned in part by the Indians at a fort called Amsaquonte above Norridgewock, in Maine. It was arranged also in the plan of operations that Oyster River-now Durham, New Hampshire-should be attacked on the way ; and the assault on that town was made July 18th nine days before the one on Groton. At Oyster River more than ninety persons were either killed or captured ; the prisoners from the two towns appear to have been taken to Maine, where they were brought frequently together during their captivity. On January 21, 1695, Lieutenant-Governor William Stoughton issued a proclamation, in which he refers to the " tragical out- rages and barberous murders" at Oyster River and Groton. He says that several of the prisoners taken at these places "are now detained by the said Indians at Amarascoggin and other adjoining places."
Hezekiah Miles, alias Hector, a friendly Indian, at one time a captive in the enemy's hands, made a deposition before the Lieutenant-Governor and Coun- cil, at Boston, May 31, 1695, which gives some details of the preparation for the attack; and Ann Jenkins, in a deposition on June 11, 1695, adds other particu- lars. These papers may be found among the Massa- chusetts Archives (VIII. 39, 40).
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The story of William and Deliverance Longley's family is a sad one to relate. They were living, with their eight children, on a small farm, perhaps a mile and a quarter from the village, on the east side of the Hollis road. Their house was built of hewn logs, and was standing at the beginning of the present century. The old cellar, with its well-laid walls, was distinctly visible forty years ago, and traces of it could be seen even to very modern times. The site of this house has recently been marked by a monument bearing the following inscription :-
HERE DWEIT WILLIAM AND DELIVERANCE LONGLEY WITH THEIR EIGHT CHILDREN. ON THE 27TH OF JULY 1694 THE INDIANS KILLED THE FATHER AND MOTHER AND FIVE OF THE CHILDREN AND CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY THE OTHER THREE.
The monument was erected in the autumn of 1879, at the expense of the town, on land generously given for the purpose by Mr. Zechariah Fitch, the present owner of the farm ; and it was dedicated with appro- priate exercises on February 20, 1880.
On the fatal morning of July 27, 1694, the massa- cre of this family took place. The savages appeared suddenly, coming from the other side of the Merri- mack River, and began the attack at Lieutenant William Lakin's house, where they were repulsed with the loss of one of their number. They followed it up by assaulting other houses in the same neigh-
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borhood. They made quick work of it, and left the town as speedily as they came. With the exception · of John Shepley's house, it is not known that they destroyed any of the buildings; but they pillaged them before they departed. They carried off thirteen prisoners, mostly children,-and perhaps all,-who must have retarded their march. There is a tradition that, early in the morning of the attack, the Indians turned Longley's cattle out of the barnyard into the cornfield and then lay in ambush. The stratagem had the desired effect. Longley rushed out of the house unarmed, in order to drive the cattle back, when he was murdered and all his family either killed or captured. The bodies of the slain were buried in one grave, a few rods northwest of the house. A small apple-tree growing over the spot and a stone lying even with the ground, for many years furnished the only clue to the final resting-place of this unfor- tunate family, but these have now disappeared,
William Longley was town clerk in the year 1687, and also from 1692 till his death, in 1694; and only one week before he was killed he had made entries in the town records. His father, William Longley, Sr., also had been town clerk during the years 1666 and 1667, and died November 29, 1680. The father was one of the earliest settlers of the town, as well as the owner of a thirty-acre right in the original Groton plantation. Lydia, John and Betty were the names of the three children carried off by the savages, and taken to Canada. Lydia was sold to the French and placed in the Congregation of Notre Dame, a convent in Montreal, where she embraced the Roman Catho-®
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lic faith, and died July 20, 1758, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. Betty perished soon after her capture from hunger and exposure; and John, the third child, remained with the savages for more than four years, when he was ransomed and brought away much against his own will. At one time during his captivity he was on the verge of starving, when an Indian kindly gave him a dog's foot to gnaw, which for the time appeased his hunger. He was known among his captors as John Augary. After he came home his sister Lydia wrote from Canada urging him to abjure the Protestant religion ; but he remained true to the faith of his early instruction.
Their grandmother, the widow of Benjamin Crispe, made her will April 13, 1698, which was admitted to probate in Middlesex County on the 28th of the fol- lowing December; and in it she remembered these absent children as follows:
" I give and bequeath Vnto my three Grand-Children yt are in Cap- tivity if they returne Vizdt these books one of ym a bible another a Ser- mon booke treating of faith and the other a psalme book."
The old lady herself, doubtless, had read the "Ser- mon booke treating of faith;" and it must have strengthened her belief in Divine wisdom, and been a great consolation in her trials. She did not know at this time that her granddaughter was already a con- vert to the Roman Catholic religion. The knowledge of this fact would have been to her an affliction scarcely less than the massacre of her daughter's family.
John Longley returned about the time when the grandmother died ; and subsequently he filled many
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important offices both in the church and the town. Like his father and grandfather, he was the town clerk during several years. Among the papers (Knox Manuscripts, Waldo Papers, L. 13) in the possession of the New England Historic Genealogical Society is a deposition made by Longley, giving a short account of his captivity among the Indians.
In the month of July, 1877, I was in Montreal, where I procured, through the kindness of the Mother Superior at the Congregation of Notre Dame, a copy of the French record of Lydia's baptism, of which the following is a translation :
"On Tuesday, April 24, 1696, the ceremony of baptism was performed on an English girl, named Lydia Longley, who was born April 14, 1674, at Groton, a few miles from Boston in New England. She was the daughter of William Longley and Deliverance Crisp, both Protestants. She was captured in the month of July, 1694, by the Abénaqui Indians, and has lived for the past month in the house of the Sisters of the Con- gregation of Notre Dame. The godfather was M. Jacques Leber, mer- chant ; the godmother was Madame Marie Madeleine Dupont, wife of M. de Maricourt, Ecuyer, Captain of a company of Marines : she named this English girl Lydia Madeleine.
Signed "LYDIA MADELEINE LONGLEY, " MADELEINE DUPONT, " LEBER, "M. CAILLE, acting curate."
After this attack of July 27th the town was left in straitened circumstances, and the inhabitants found it difficult to meet the demands made on them. In this emergency they petitioned the General Court for relief, which was duly granted.
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