History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 236

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 236

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Lient. John Johnson lived where his descendant, Bailey Bartlett, lived, and the Exchange Building on Water Street now is. When a party of the enemy made their appearance, he aud his wife were standing in the doorway ; with them was Ruth, wife of Thomas Johnson 2d (sou of his son, Lieut. John, 2d) who had in her arms a babe a year old. Johnson and his wife were shot down where they stood, and Ruth Johnson, flying through the house, was killed in the garden at the rear, where the Osgood block stands. Tradition says that the babe was found, clinging to the dead mother's breast. Johnson was a deacon and the town records show that he was a useful and respected citi- zen. Chase says that he is supposed to have descended from Captain Edward Johnson, the famous author of the " Wonder Working Providence of Zion's Saviour," before quoted. This would be "important, if true," as a distinguished antiquary used to observe; but Chase gives no evidence in support of the suggestion.1 Edward Johnson came over with Winthrop in 1630. Returning to England a little while, he was in Charlestown for a few years (1636-42), and then be- came the chief founder of Woburn. Deacon John Johuson was the original blacksmith, who came to Haverhill in 1658. He was seventy-five (75) years old.

Mr. Silvers' house, within ten rods of the meeting- house, was rifled and burned. The watch-house, on Main Street, built seven years before, was attacked but successfully defended.

The house of Captain Simon Wainwright, the mer- chant, stood directly opposite the Winter Street meet- ing-house. He was shot at the first assault. Mrs. Wainwright unbarred the doors aud admitted the as- sailants. After a little parley, she left them under the pretense of procuring them money, and escaped with all her children, save a daughter who was taken captive. A party of soldiers were quartered in the chambers, and made a resolute defense, driving off their assailants. They made an ineffectual attempt to fire the house, but took with them three prisouers. Meantime, the soldiers killed from the windows two Indians, who were skulking behind a rock while they fired. Buried in the field, the floods exposed their bones only a few years ago.

Swan's house stood on White's lot, near the Winter Street meeting-house. The old Revolutionary soldier, Captain Nehemiah Emerson, used to tell the tale of its defense, as he got it from his grandfather, who, on the day of the great fray, lived in the garrison house of his father, Jonathan Emerson. The Swans had children, in whose defense and their own, they deter- mined to hold out as long as possible. Two Indians attempted to break down the door, which they had barricaded with their bodies. Hard pressed, Mr. Swan, a timid man, thought it would be best to yield

1 It is not true. St. John Johnson was oldest son of William Johnson, of Charlestown. He was born in England in 1633 and came in his mother's arnis to Charlestown the next year. See "Genealogical Regis- ter," January, 1879.

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and not exasperate the foe. But Mrs. Swan was res- olute, and when the foremost Indian was forcing his way in, she ran her spit, three feet long, through his body. The disheartened savages retreated spir- itless, but whether spitless or not, the chronicles do not vouchsafe to tell us.

Simon Wainwright, as we have mentioned, came from Ipswich. His father, Francis, was famous for his exploit in the Pequot War, when, being attacked by two Indians, and breaking the stock of his gun, he killed them both with the barrel. Simon was an influential and very prosperous citizen. In those days the traders were likely to get what ready money there was about. Was the rumor of it so great that even the Canadians had heard of it who asked his wife for money ? There was a story that he had a great chest packed tightly with Spanish dollars. Ile buried a good many of his dollars in his life-time, and there has been considerable digging at.different times to find it, but in vain. For the information of treasure-seekers, it is deemed proper to mention here that the dollars will be found in the space " bounded by Little River on the south and west, Winter Street on the north, and the easterly line of the lots on the easterly side of Emerson Street on the east."

April 29, 1710, Widow Mary Wainwright petition- ed the General Court from Haverhill to take some care for the redemption of her daughter, "a long time in captivity with the French of Canada," " be- fore Canada be so endeared to her that I shall never have my daughter more." The indorsement on the petition is: "In the House of Representatives read and recommended 12th June." May not this captive girl have been "the daughter of the King's Lieutenant," whom the Sieur Dupuys, according to Charlevoix carried " a good part of the way" ?

Nathan Simon's house was attacked and he was wounded in the arm by a ball. He shot two Indians and the attacking party retired.

Sibley, the late well-known antiquarian of Harvard College, states in his history of Union, Me., that there was a tradition of the sibley family that Samuel Sibley, the ancestor, was killed by the meeting-house. Sibley, was from Salem and was probably one of the soldiers under Major Turner.

These various attacks were made about the same time by separate small detachments of the invaders.

One of them had set fire to the rear of the new meeting-house, constructed, as we have seen, at so great an effort. Its loss would have been almost irreparable. Fortunately, a wholesome diversion occurred just at this time. Mr. Davis, a bold and quick-witted man, going behind Mr. Rolfe's barn, which was near the house, struck violently with a great club, and with onteries and words of command, shouted, " Come on ! Come on ! We will have them." The stragglers still remaining in Mr. Rolfe's house took alarm and, after a hasty and fruitless attempt to

fire it, ran forth crying: "The English are come." Doubtless the raiders had been warned by their leaders that their success depended upon a surprise, and the work must be rapid on account of the soldiers in garrison houses at their rear. And about this time Major Turner actually arriving with his company of soldiers, the whole force commenced a rapid re- treat, taking with them a number of prisoners. Mirick says the retreat commenced about sunrise. The opportune Davis ran to the meeting-house, and, with the aid of a few others, put out the flames and saved the building. The Sibley tradition declares that Samuel, the ancestor, was killed while throwing water here. It might have been a last, straggling shot.

The town was now roused and taking to arms. Joseph Bradley (probably the commander of the North garrison) collected a small party and secured the medicine box and packs of the enemy, which they had left about three miles from the village. The spot is said to have been a short distance north of the house of Deacon Carleton, in the West Parish, about half a mile north of the place where the subsequent fight took place.

Captain Samuel Ayer, a strong and fearless man, collected a party of about twenty men and pursued the enemy, coming up with and attacking them as they were about entering the woods, when they faced about and gave battle. Captain Ayer was soon rein- forced by another party, led by his son, making the whole number of townsmen about sixty or seventy. After a smart fight which lasted about an hour, they retook some of the prisoners, and the French force retreated in haste, leaving nine of their number dead on the field. Mirick declares that their sufferings were so great, on account of the loss of their packs and the consequent want of food, that many of the Frenchmen gave themselves up as prisoners ; and some of their own captives were dismissed with a message that if they were pursued, the rest should be put to death. Probably there were some stragglers in the rapid retreat; and we have scen that Charle- voix admits the escape of "several " of their prison- ers " during the last combat."

The French account states also that their people threw down their packs of provisions in order to carry on the last fight with greater ease, and makes no mention of the packs having been left behind in the outskirts of the town and taken by the English. Mirick claims that the French left thirty of their number dead, in both engagements, and many were wounded whom they carried with them. Perhaps some Indians were killed of whom no exact roster was made. Governor Dudley, in his address to the Assembly, says : " We might have done more against them if we had followed their tracks." This might well be. The French were in a very critical condi- tion, at such an immense distance from home. The attack had been a bold one and they were fortunate

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they did not pay a terrible penalty, in their retreat being cut off entirely.

One may conjecture that each party had seen enough of the other.

Captain Ayer was killed in the engagement, before the reinforeing party arrived. He was shot in the groin, and bled so profusely his son did not recognize him. Captain Ayer was a deacon, also one of the select- men, and an active, resolute and worthy man. He lived near Plug Pond.

The local historians make the number of killed be- longing to Haverhill as sixteen,-Mr. Rolfe, wife and child, Mrs. Smith, Thomas Hartshorne and three sons, Lieut. Johnson and his wife Catherine, Capt. Wain- wright, Capt. Ayer, John Dalton, Ruth, wife of Thos. Ayer, with one daughter, and Ruth, wife of Thomas Johnson 2d. Probably about the same number were carried away as prisoners.

Joseph Bartlett, of Newbury, about twenty-two years old, who was stationed as a soldier at Capt. Wain- wright's house, was taken prisoner, and after his return from Canada published a very interesting account of his adventures. He was absent over four years. The General Conrt allowed him £20 15s. for his charges and expenses. He was taken in the Wain- wright house, in company with Mary Wainwright and another soldier named Newmarsh. Soon after the retreat began a Salem soldier named Lindall was knocked in the head. The attack by Capt. Ayer's party so demoralized the French that they broke up into small parties, which did not unite again for three days. During that time they traveled hard. When they reached Lake Winnipiseogee, the French and Indians separated. Bartlett was taken by the Indians. However it may have been with the former, the In- dians suffered for lack of food. Bartlett seems to have had his share of what was going. He appears not to have been treated unkindly, except by the squaws. Perhaps the Indian women may have hated the Eng- lish, against whom their husbands fought and at whose hands they sometimes fell, as the English women hated the Indians. As a rule, the Indians treated their captives tolerably well, except in case of sudden provocation or terror. This was ordinarily a matter of policy, as they intended to sell them to the French for servants. The aged, sick and infants, with whom they did not care to be embarrassed, they cer- tainly made short and brutal work of.

Pike, in his journal, says that " many soldiers be- longing to Salem were here slain." Among them was William Coffin, to whose widow, Sarah, the General Court granted £5, " on account of the remarkable for- wardness and courage which her husband, William Coffin, of Salem, distinguished himself by, in the ae- tion at Haverhill, where he was slain."

When the fighting was over and comparative calm- ness had arrived, the day was far advanced. It was midsummer and sultry, and the dead must be speed- ily buried. Some, no donbt, were put in earth where

they fell. Coffins could only be made for the most important. In the burial-ground a large pit was dug, where several were laid away together. Mr. Rolfe, his wife and child, were placed in one grave, near the south end of the ground. A respectable monument was erected to their memory, with suitable inserip- tions, which, in the course of a century and a half, became illegible. In 1818 an appropriate monument and inscriptions were erected by the care of the wom- en of Haverhill, who were engaged in restoring the "old burying ground" to a condition of becoming decency. The old Latin epitaph to Mr. Rolfe was recarved and is as follows : " Clauditur hoc tumulo corpus reverendi, pii, doctique viri, Benjamin Rolfe, ecclesia Christi qua est in Haverhill, pastoris fidelis- simi : qui domi sua ab hostibus barbare trucidatus. A laboribus suis requievit mane diei sacra quietis, Aug. XXIX, Anno Domini MDCCVIII, atatis suæ XLVI."

Samuel Sewall, then judge of the Superior Court, entered in his diary, under the date of 1703-04: " Febr. 8, a garrison honse is surprised at Haverhill by six or seven Indians." This was the attack in which Hannah Bradley was taken prisoner.

"Lord's Day, Aug. 29, 1708. About 4 P.M. an express brings the news, the doleful news of the sur- prise of Haverhill by 150 French and Indians. Mr. Rolf and his family slain, about break of day. Those words ran much in my mind, I will smite the Shep- herd and the sheep shall be scattered. What a dread- ful scattering is here of poor Haverill flock, upon the very day they used to have their solemn assem- blies ! Capt. Wainwright is slain."

May 1, 1697, the judge made entry : "Hannah Dustan came to see me ; gave her part of Connecticut flax. She saith her master, whom she killed, formerly lived with Mr. Rowlandson at Lancaster. He told her that when he prayed the English way, he thought that was good, but now he found the French way was better. The single man showed the night before to Sam'l Lenarson how he used to knock Englishmen on the head and take off their scalps, little thinking that the captives would make some of their first exper- iments upon himself."

September 25, 1708, there was an aların, but no at- tack. Colonel Saltonstall wrote the Governor and Council on the 27th "that a party of the enemy, to the number of about thirty, were discovered in the town on Saturday night, but that he soon gave the alarm, drew a number of soldiers together, and had repelled and driven them back without suffering any loss." The Boston News Letter of October 4th says of this atfair,-"Some few skulking Indians were dis- covered in the town in the night, and the alarm be- ing made, they were soon frighted, and drew off with- out doing any mischief."

October ISth Jonathan Emerson, Jonathan Eatton and William Johnson, selectmen, petitioned the Gen- eral Court for abatement of a part of the town tax.

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They set forth the assaults upon the town, "damni- fying us to ye value of about ( £) 1000 1b. beside (which is more) loss of lives, thereby reducing us to great ex- tremity and distraction, discouraging of hearts of many amongst us who are upon designs and endeav- ors to remove, whereby our condition is rendered in some measure comparable to yt of David's & ye men with him when Ziklag was spoiled. Considering also in conjunction therewith ye extreem charges we must be exposed unto (if our town stands) in build- ing strong garrisons. Now settling a minister, &c." The court ordered an abatement of thirty pounds from their tax.

In 1711 we find that the parsonage house was pre- pared and fortified at an expense of £11 148. 6d. The garrisons and houses of refuge were kept in or- der. A company of soldiers, under the command of ; ing the sending a strong party to Lake Winnipiseo- Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Saltonstall were armed, gee, to surprise and utterly break up the Indians in equipped and exercised. June 19, 1710, the General that region. Court ordered these men to be equipped with snow- shoes. Snow-shoes were also supplied to the North Militia Regiment of Essex. Chase gives a list of fifty- six of these snow-shoe men who lived in Haverhill.

August 27, 1712, a foot company of fifty men was ordered raised and posted at Haverhill.

Queen Anne's War closed April 13, 1713, with the peace of Utrecht, and on the 13th of July following a treaty was made with the Indians at Portsmouth, em- bracing the tribes from the Merrimac to the St. Johns. By this treaty the English were to enjoy their old settlements, without claim or molestation from the Indians, while the latter reserved their an- cient rights of hunting, fishing and fowling. The government was to establish convenient trading- houses, where the Indians could obtain supplies with- out the extortion and imposition formerly common. The next spring a ship was sent to Quebec to ex- change prisoners.

Hutchinson estimates that "from 1675 to 1715 5000 to 6000 of the youth of the country had perished by the enemy or by distempers contracted in the service."

The peace with the Indians did not last long. Fresh troubles arose with the Eastern tribes, and in 1717 it was necessary to have a confirmation of the treaty of 1713. The Jesuit priests, notably Father Ralle, who had his station and mission chapel at Norridgewock, were held to be responsible for stirring up the indian hostilities. Three times an attempt was made to capture him. August 23, 1724, the Eng- lish surprised and destroyed his settlement, and the body of the good priest was left upon the ground near the cross, scalped and outraged. Whatever, however, may be said of Father Ralle, his death broke the power of the Norridgewocks and led towards a permanent peace. Previously, in 1722, Brunswick, Me., was destroyed, and great alarm sprang up all along the frontier.

August 10, 1722, the selectmen were ordered "to

build a good fort round Rev. Mr. Brown's house with what speed they could." The people did not mean to lose a second good minister. The town clerk jour- neyed to Ipswich on horseback to get nails for the fort, and two quarts of rum-a very moderate quantity -were used for the raising, at an expense of four shillings. In the spring of 1724 the enemy seemed to be omnipresent. They were scattered all over the country in small parties, plundering, murdering and spread- ing terror in every direction. A constant watch was kept. In July Colonel Noyes, of Newbury, was di- rected to send twelve men to Haverhill and six to Amesbury, to serve as scouts. September 15th "John White, Capt .; Richard Kimball, Capt .; Jon- athan Woodman, Capt. ; and Richard Hazzen, Lieut.," wrote to the Governor from Haverhill, strongly urg-

The last important passage of arms in these hos- tilities was at Pequawket, or Pigwacket ( Fryeburg, Me.), in May, 1725. The long Indian hostilities had trained Indian fighters among the English as hardy, as wary and cunning as the savages themselves. John Lovewell, of Dunstable, was one of the most noted, and raised a party of volunteers for this expe- dition which numbered forty-six men besides himself, including a chaplain and surgeon. The chaplain prayed morning and evening. He was Frye, of Andover, and the doggerel in which his name is commemorated illustrates the spirit of the time :

"They wounded good young Frye, Who was our English chaplain. Ile many Indians slew, And some of them he scalped While bullets round him flew."

Four of Lovewell's men were from Haverhill,- Abiel Asten, Ebenezer Ayer, Doctor William Ayer and Zebediah Austin. Asten was living in 1790, at a great age, in that part of old Haverhill now Salem, N. H. Austin lived in what is now Methuen. He got back too, for he married in 1729. These Haver- hill men probably joined Lovewell's party here, where the expedition was furnished with supplies by John White, who had charge of the stores kept here, to supply the soldiers. They marched away about April 27th. After the famous fight with Paugus and his men at Saco Pond, only a few wounded, exhausted men were left to crawl away. But nobody dared hang upon their trail. After the famous fight the power of the Eastern Indians steadily declined, and the Abenaki chiefs signed, at the Couneil chamber in Boston, December 15, 1725, a treaty of peace which was long respected, and other tribes aeeeded to it at Falmouth (Portland) in 1727.

Even after Lovewell's fight the terrors of Haver- hill continued. A scouting-party was in service during September and October, 1725. Joshua Bailey and Jonathan Woodman wrote to the Governor

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August 30th that Indians had recently been "lurking in the woods ; guns heard, etc." The men were called " centinels," and a line of them were kept constantly posted on the frontier of the town to keep watch and give alarm if need be. In 1723 John Clement had asked to be relieved from paying the rent of the Parsonage Farm for the previous year because he had been driven off by the war.

We have arrived at a time when the troubles of the Haverhill people, growing ont of hostilities by the Indians, were at last drawing to a close. There were still French and Indian Wars, and Ilaverhill men fought in them. But the town was now safe. Notwithstanding the fear and annoyance inspired by the savage, the line of settlement was moving to the north. Haverhill ceased to be a frontier town and was itself protected by other towns.

The story of the Indian forays upon Haverhill was told by Mirick in his history of the town with con- siderable vivacity. Sixty years ago a respectable amount of tradition remained upon the lips of the old people still living, which he was fortunate enough to catch and reduce to permanent form. In the West and North Parishes there were those who, sitting in the corners of the great open fire-places of winter nights, had heard, with breathless attention, their grand- sires' tales of how the Indians came down.

In 1795 Rev. Abiel Abbot was ordained as minister of the First Church in Haverhill. He was an admir- able scholar and a fine writer, with literary tastes. In- terested in the early history of the town, he set himself speedily to do his share towards preserving its annals. Judith Whiting, who was a big girl when the great descent was made, was still living. When the Haver- hill bridge was completed in the fall of 1794 the old woman walked over it unaided. Mirick says she was then in her hundredth year. She failed to complete the century, lacking twelve days when she died. But she was full of the Indian lore, and Mr. Abbot received its narratives from her lips and reduced them to writing.

This period in the town's annals has been dealt with with great, and perhaps disproportionate detail. But it is not only the romantic, but the critical period. The townspeople often talked of " drawing off,"-aban- doning their property to the savage foe. Probably they never really meant to do that ; they were made of sterner stuff. But they might have been obliged to go. An attack like that of Hertel de Romilles, made ten or twelve years before, would almost have exterminated them. The French commanders were men of superior enterprise and skill, far abler than the English. And as Charlevoix has truly told us, they, with the assistance of the astute and indefatigable Jesuits, were much more successful in the manage- ment of their Indian allies. They appreciated the Indian character. They were not disgusted by his brutal traits, or they were much more successful in concealing their disgust. The Jesuits lived with their

converts ; they ate and slept with them. This even the good apostle Eliot could not do. He would have given his life to save them, in this world and the next; but his stomach would not bear their food, and the heat, the filth and the vermin of their wigwams overpowered him to faintness. From the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean, the Frenchman, whether colonist, pioneer, warrior or trapper, has been gay and contented, with his Indian wife and his cop- per-colored children. Under Frontenac and Vau- dreuil, New England was long harried and tormented. Then the enterprising Frenchman built a whole line of forts from the St. Lawrence River to the Gulf of Mexico ; and until the triumphs of Pitt and the death of Montcalm, upon the heights of Abraham, it was not certain that the Gaul would not drive the Anglo-Saxon into the Atlantic Ocean. True, the Englishman was driving his roots deep into the soil. The Frenchman was full of military fire and ambition ; his rival was cultivating the earth and increasing his resources. He had, at least, the longest purse, and the heaviest battalions for war.

The Catholic religion and the priest's simple bap- tism -- the Ma-sand the cross -- suited the American sav- age better than the severe austerity and the subtle theology of Calvinism, No wonder Hannah Duston's master " found the French way better."

The patient consideration of our fathers' relation with the Indians, is the more necessary in order to comprehend the permanent effect it had upon the character of the New England people.

The leading living representative of the first Massa- chusetts Governor says : "The spreading of the Gos- pel and the conversion of the heathen were foremost in the contemplation of the New England Fathers." Before leaving England, in 1629, in "The Conclusions for New England," Winthrop wrote : " It will be a ser- vice to the church of great consequence to carry the Gospell into those partes of the World, to helpe on the comminge of the fulnesse of the Gentiles." But the Massachusetts colonists found very few Indians in their immediate neighborhood ; they were very busy themselves, and they postponed carrying the Gospel to a more convenient season.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 236

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1672

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672