History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 110

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700

USA > Massachusetts > History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I > Part 110

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except Springfield and Hadley should be abandoned, and their inhabitants gathered into these two towns for purposes of de- fense. The council claimed that " to remain in such a scattered state is to expose lives and estates to the merciless cruelty of the enemy." The appeal was futile; the faith and courage which planted, if they had before wavered, now arose firmly to maintain the several towns in their integrity.

The later events of this war now hurried on. About the Ist of April a number of the residents of Hadley proceeded to Hoekanum, with a guard of soldiers, to work in the fields. They were assailed from an ambush by a party of Indians, who killed Deacon Richard Goodman and two of the soldiers, and captured a third soldier, named Thomas Reed .? Those killed and captured seem to have gone apart from the others.

Near the time of this incident-on the Ist of April-most of the troops left Hadley, under Maj. Savage, who allowed 151 soldiers to remain in charge of Capt. Turner. Of these 51 were stationed at Hadley, 46 at Northampton, 45 at Hat- field, and 9 at Springfield. Some of Capt. Appleton's troops left the preceding November yet remained. These soldiers were allowed to remain, doubtless, upon condition that the towns should support them, the offer of Northampton, "to diet them freely and pay their wages," having been accepted by the council.

The Indians, having been emboldened by the cessation of active campaigning against them, and by the withdrawal of troops, again occupied the planting-grounds at Deerfield. Mr. Russell wrote to the council, May 15th, concerning this, and gave other information as coming from Thomas Reed, who had effected his escape, and adds :

" Ile saith finther, that they dwell at the falls, on both sides of the river,-are a considerable number, yet most of them oll men and old women. He cannot judge that there are, on both sides of the river, above 60 or 70 fighting-men. They are secure and scornful, boasting of great things they have done and will do. . . . This lwing the state of things, we think the Lon calls us to make some trial what may be done against them suddenly, without further delay, and there- fore the concurring resolution of men here seems to be to go out against them to-morrow night, so as to be with them, the Lord assisting, before break of day. We needl guidance and help from heaven."

He says, in postscript, sagely :

" Althn' this man speaks of their number as he judgeth, yet they may he many more, for we perceive their number varies, and they are going and coming, su that there is no trust to his guess."

The proposed expedition against the Indians was under- taken on the evening of the 18th of May|| by a body of about 160 mounted men, from the several towns, under Capt. Turner. The resulting fight the following day, at what is now known as Turner's Falls, with its triumphant begin- ning and, in some respects, calamitous ending, is described elsewhere in this volume. Capt. Turner was shot while eross- ing Green River upon the return march, and 38 soldiers were slain, all except one after leaving the falls.

The following residents of Hadley were in the " Falls fight :" Sergts. Joseph Kellogg and John Dickinson, Samuel Bolt- wood, Noah Coleman. Nehemiah Dickinson, Isaac Harrison, John Ingram, John Smith, Joseph Selden, Joseph Warriner, Thomas Wells, Jr., Jonathan Wells, J David Hoyt, Samuel

away at their pleasure, so as they never adventured to break through afterward upon any of the towns so secured."

The Hadley palisade was placed some distance in the rear of the buildings, on both sides of the street, and extended across the street at each end, inclosing a space nearly a mile long and abont forty rods in width. Gates were made where the palisade crossed each of the lateral highways, and at the ends of the prin- cipal street, through which alone ingress and egress were pern itted. It was ordered by the town that all bushes which might afford a lurking-place for the enemy shoubl be cleared away in the vicinity of the fortification.

* Dr. Ilolland says, in regard to the palisades, " After the completion of these works the troops at Hadley were called off to Connectient and the East, a sufli- cient number being left to garrison the several towns." (Hist. of West. Mass., Vol. 1. p. 109.) The fortification mus not completed when the vote was taken, Feb. 11, 1676. The troops withdrew in November previous,

+ Capt. Turner proceeded to Northampton. There were then left in Ilulley one Connecticut company, under Capt. Whipple, and two Massachusetts compa- nies, under Capt. Gillam,-all under Maj. Savage.

Mr. Judd exclaims at the extravagant figures; 42000 Indian warriors! Strange delusion ! There may have been 300 or 400."

& Mrs. Rowlandson, the wife of the minister at Lancaster, who was captured at that place on the 10th of February, 1676, and who, at the time of the affair at HIorkanum, was with the Indians above Northfield, says, in her published ac- count, " About this time the Indians came yelping from Hadley, having there killed three Englishmen, and brought one captive, Thomas Reed. They all gathered about the poor man, asking him many questions."

| Not the 17th, as often erroneously stated. The records of Northampton and Hatfield, as well as the narratives of Ilope AAtherton and Jonathan Wells, show that the conflict was on the 10th of May.

Jonathan Wells, according to Dr. Holland, was a resilent of Hatfield ; ac- vording to Mr. Judd, a resident of Hadley, and subsequently of Peerfield. Mr. Wells was crippled in the night by a shot which fractured his thigh, and, keeping his saddle, accompanied as best he could the retreating parties of soldiers. He became bewillered in the woods, while in the company of one Jones, also wonuded, and finally fell exhausted from his horse. Using his gun for a sup- port, he pursue l his painful journey, unfortunately in the wrong direction, but

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HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE COUNTY.

Crow, Peter Montague, and Eliezer Hawks; also Nathaniel Sutliffe, who had lived in Deerfield. John Preston, who had enlisted under Capt. Turner, was also from Hadley, or after- ward settled there. Harrison and Sutliffe were slain, and John Dickinson and Samuel Crow probably.

The descendants of 68 Hampshire men who participated in this battle were awarded, in 1786, as many shares of land in Falltown, now Bernardston ; and fifteen of the shares fell to representatives of the volunteers from Hadley.

Notwithstanding the loss of a large number of their war- riors in the fight of May 19th, the Indians soon took the of- fensive, and on the eleventh day thereafter appeared at Hat- field, where they fired several houses and barns " without the fortification," and did other damage. "Twenty-five active and resolute men," wrote Mr. Mather, " went from Hadley to relieve their distressed brethren. The Indians shot at them ere they could get out of the boat, and wounded one of them." One of the twenty-five was slain,-" a precious young man, whose name was Smith,* that place (Hadley) having lost many in losing that one man."

The forces in Hadley were angmented by the arrival there, on the 8th of June, of Maj. John Taleott, in command of 250 mounted men and 200 friendly Indians. A part of these forces proceeded to Northampton. The advent of these mounted men and Indians, according to Mr. Judd, created a profound sensation in Hadley. He says :

" The Indians were Pequots, Mohicans, Nianticks, Indians from Dartford County, and some from Fairfield. They formed a motley assemblage ; their dress and urins were various, and their decorations diversified and fantastic. A collection of 200 friendly Indian warriors was a sight which the inhabitants of these towns never saw before."

Capt. Swain, after the death of Capt. Turner, was sent to take the command in Hadley. Maj. Talcott made his head- quarters at Northampton.

At this period the towns-especially Northampton and IIadley-possessed ample means of defense. Both towns had palisades, and were strongly garrisoned not only, but contained surplus troops, intended for an active campaign against the enemy.

The Indians were probably unaware of the real state of affairs, and on the 12th of June appeared at Hadley and made an attack upon the town. A contemporaneous writer, Rev. Increase Mather, gives the following graphic account :

" June 12th the enemy assaulted Hadley. In the morning, sun an hour high, three soldiers, going out of the town without their arms, were dis-naded there- trum by a sergeant who stood at the gate, but they, alle ging that they intended not to go far, were suffered to pass; within awhile the sergeant apprehended that he heard some men running, and looking over the fortification he saw twenty Indians pursuing those three men, who were so terrified that they could not cry out,-two of them were at last killed, and the other so mortally wounded that he lived not alove two or three days,-wherefore the sergeant gave the alarm. God, in great mercy to these western plantations, had so ordered by his providence that the Connectient army was come thither before this onset from the enemy. Besides English, there were near upon two hundred Indians in Hadley, who came to fight with and for the English against the common enemy, who was quickly driven off at the south end of the town. Whilst our men were pursuing of them here, on a sudden a great swarm of Indians issued ont of the bushes and made their main assault at the north end of the town ; they fired a barn which was withont the fortification, and went into a house where the inhabitants discharged a great gunt upon them, whereupon ahont fifty Indians were seen running out of the house in great haste, being terribly frighted by the report and slanghter made amongst them by the great gun. Ours followed the enemy (whom they judged to be about five hundred, and, by Indian report since, it seems they were seven hundred) near upon two miles, and would fain have pur- sued them further, but they had no orders so to do, But few of ours lost their

was admonished in a sleep which came upon him of his error, and changed his course. Ilis after-experience, fraught with hair-breadth escapes, would form alone an interesting chapter .- Vide Dr. Ilolland's West. Mass., Vol. I. p. 124.

* " John Smith, of Hadley, so highly praised by Mather, was in the Falls fight a few days before. He was a son of Lient. Samuel Smith, and an ancestor of the HIatfield Smiths. The late Oliver Smith, of Hatfield, the most wealthy man in Hampshire, was one of his descendants."-Mr. Judd's HIist., p. 176, note.

f Mr. Judd, commenting upon some points of this letter, says, "It is not known when and where Hadley obtaine 1 this 'great gun,' which was only a small cannon ;" and respecting the number of Indians, " There were not at that time seven hon tred hostile In lian warriors in Massachusetts,"

lives in this skirmish, nor is it yet known how many the enemy lost in this fight. The English could find Unt three dead Indians, yet some of them who have been informed by Indians, that while the Indian men were thins fighting against Iladley the Mohueks came upon their headquarters and smote their women and children with a great slaughter, and then returned with much plunder."

According to this account, the struggle appears to have been entirely outside the palisades. It will be remembered that a number of houses at the north end were not inclosed by the fortification. These were probably the ones to receive the assault. Says Mr. Judd :

" The object of the Indians seems to have been to plunder and destroy with- out the fortification, as at Hatfield. It may be conjectured that a part of them designed to cut off those that went down to work in Fort and Hockanum mea- dows in the morning. There may have been 250 Indians engaged in this enter- prise. They were our river Indians and other Nipmacks, with some Narragansetts."

With the exception of an attack on Hatfield and Deerfield, on the 19th of September in the succeeding year, 1677, when several of the inhabitants of those towns were killed and others taken prisoners, and that of the burning of the Hadley grist-mill, situated on Mill River, in the ensuing October, no further events of moment occurred in these northern towns during this war. Nearly all the troops were withdrawn from Hadley by the end of June, 1676, only a small garrison, under Capt. Swain, remaining. These also left before September.

The cultivation of the outlying lands during the war was attended with danger, and those most remote from the defenses were not tilled in 1676.

The following vote of the town, in July of that year, suf- ficiently illustrates the situation. Swords, if not then plow- shares, at least accompanied the implements of husbandry :

"Ordered, that during the time of cutting and inning of cornt and grass in Hockanum and Fort Meadow, there shall be not less than the whole number of garrison soldiers, and two out of each squadron, or eight inhabitants, left to secure the town as a garrison every day, the ordering of the garrison aforesaid to tw under the inspection of the captain of the garrison soldiers and Lient. Smith. Ordered, that no less than forty nor more than fifty men presnine to go to labor in Hockanum or Fort Meadow, as to harvest-work ; and this number they sliall dispose of in the best manner for their security and safety; and on those days when such a part are working, either in Hockanum or Fort Meadow, no person shall then he working in the Great Muulow, but the rest are to abide in the town as a security, under a penalty of three shillings. To-morrow, July 19th, shall be the day for going to Hockanum, the 20th into the Great Meadow, the 21st into Hockanum, and so the week following."

During the winter of 1675-76, and until the following May, the northern towns paid their own soldiers who were engaged in garrison duty, and their maintenance was no light burden. ? Rev. Mr. Russell entertained the chief officers at his own house, and, after two petitions in his behalf,-one of which was signed by his wife, Rebecca Russell,-was partly, if not wholly, reimbursed for his outlay, amounting to £78 13s. 8d. The keeping of these officers " called for provisions answerable, and was of the best to be had ;" and, say the petitioners, be had " to draw divers barrels of beer, and much wine and fruit suitable to the company ; and had no more credit for such company by the week or meal than other men for ordinary entertainment," and caused " great cumber, trouble, and bur- den upon his wife."

It is reasonable to suppose that the judges, Whalley and Goffe, who had so long been harbored by Mr. Russell, were not among the number of his guests at this period. ||

TRADITION CONCERNING GENERAL GOFFE, THE "HADLEY ANGEL."

Local traditions concerning alleged local events, whether or not sustained by known facts of history, are believed to

# Wheat is meant.

¿ " Samuel Porter took care of most of the wounded soldiers at Hadley, and lai'l out much for their provision and comfort. Su says the record of the Gen- eral Court, September, 1676. There was due him, for what he had expended on the country's account, about €200. Richard Montague baked for the soldiers, and Timothy Nash repaired their arms."-Mr. Judd's Hist., p. 192.

| Mr. Judd says the judges " were undoubtedly at Peter Tilton's and Lient. Samnel Smith's during the war. They could not have been cineraled at Mr. Russell's."

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HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

have some occasion for their origin outside the mere imagin- ings of men, and are entitled to a place in the annals of the historian. Such a tradition, claiming that, on a given occa- sion when Hadley was beset by the savages, a mysterious stranger appeared, took a prominent part in the defense of the town, and suddenly disappeared, and that the people believed an angel had been sent for their deliverance, in the person of that stranger, has been variously narrated by writers of New England history.

It was nearly one hundred years after the affair that it is supposed gave rise to this tradition before the name of Gen. Goffe was connected with it in any published document. To this phase of the story special interest attaches.

Referring to the preceding pages, it will be observed that Rev. Increase Mather says of the affair at Hadley, on Sept. 1, 1775, the people " were driven from the holy service they were attending by a violent alarm, which routed them the whole day after."

Gov. Hutchinson, in his " History of Massachusetts, " pub- lished in 1764, gives the following, in a note, and says it is an anecdote handed down in Gov. Leverett's family :

" The town of Hadley was alarmed by the Indians in 1675,* in the time of publie worship, and the people were in the utmost confusion. Suddenly a grave, elderly person appeared in the midst of them. In his mien and dress he differed from the rest of the people. He not only encouraged them to defend themselves, but put himself at their head, rallied, in- structed, and led them on to encounter the enemy, who by this means were repulsed. As suddenly the deliverer of Had- ley disappeared. The people were left in consternation, utterly unable to account for this strange phenomenon. It is not probable that they were ever able to explain it. If Goffe had been then discovered, it must have come to the knowledge of those persons who declare by their letters that they never knew what became of him."

Next in order is the version of the angel story as related by President Stiles in his " History of the Three Judges," pub- lished in 1794:

"Though told with some variation in different parts of New England, the true story of the angel is this : That pions congregation were observing a fast at Had- ley, on occasion of the war, and being at public worship in the meeting-house there, on a fast-day, Sept. 1, 1675, were suddenly surrounded and surprised hy a body of Indians.t It was the usage in the frontier towns, and even at New Haven, in those Indian wars, for a select number of the congregation to go armed to public worship. It was so at Hadley at this time. The people immediately took to their arms, but were thrown into great consternation and confusion. Had Hadley been taken, the discovery of the judges had been inevitable, Sud- denly, and in the midst of the people, there appeared a man of a very venerable aspect, and different from the inhabitants in his apparel, who took the command, arranged and ordered them in the best military mauner, and under his direc- tion they repelled and routed the Indians, and the town was saved. He imme- liately vanished, and the inhabitants could not account for the phenomenon but by considering that person as an angel sent of God upon that special occasion for their deliverance, and for some time after said and believed that they had been delivered and saved by an angel. Nor did they know or conceive otherwise till fifteen or twenty years after, when it at length became known at Hadley that the two judges hudl been secreted there, which, probably, they did not know till after Mr. Russell's death, in 1692. This story, however, of the angel at Hadley, was before this universally diffused through New England by means of the mem- orable Indian war of 1675. The mystery was unriddled after the Revolution,; when it became not so very dangerous to have it known that the judges had received an asylum here, and that Goffe was actually in Hadley at that time. The angel was certainly Gen. Goffe, for Whalley was superannuated in 1675."

By the pens of later writers the story has been considerably amplified and embellished, attaining its maximum of romantic detail in " Palfrey's History of New England," 1865. An in- teresting modification is introduced by John Farmer, secre- tary of the New Hampshire Historical Society, who spices his sketch with the statement that Gen. Goffe, who saw the enemy approaching the meeting-house, " knowing the peril of

* Governor Hutchinson gives the precise date as Sept. 1, 1675.

+ Mr. Judd says, " President Stiles errs in supposing the meeting-house was surrounded by Judians."

# Revolution in England.

the congregation, felt constrained to give them notice, although it might lead to the discovery of his character and his place of concealnent. He went in haste to the house of God, apprised the assembly that the enemy were near, and that preparation must immediately be made for defense."

Other accounts of this transaction have been given by the following : Gen. Epaphras Hoyt, of Deerfield, 1824, in "Anti- quarian Researches ;" Holmes, in " Annals of America ;" Dr. J. G. Holland, in " History of Western Massachusetts," 1855; Rev. Dr. Huntington, in his address at Hadley's Bi-Centen- nial Celebration, June 8, 1859; Sylvester Judd, in " History of lladley," published in 1863. Two of these, Gen. Hoyt and Dr. Holland, connect the tradition with the attack on Iladley by the Indians, June 12, 1676, thus differing from other writers.

Ile would seem a bold innovator indeed who, after the lapse of more than two centuries, ventured to question the verity of any alleged fact of history which had met with such nearly uni- versal acceptance, and been sustained by so formidable an array of historians. So bold a writer has come forth, in the person of Hon. George Sheldon, of Deerfield, who, in May, 1874, in a paper read before the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Associa- tion, entered upon a sharp analysis of the original and suc- eeeding accounts, as noted above, and ventured the opinion that not only was the asserted defense by Goffe a myth, but that there was no attack on Hadley Sept. 1, 1675.

Mr. Sheldon says, in substance, respecting the attack, that it has no verification in contemporaneous history ; that Hutch- inson, notwithstanding his possession of Goffe's diary,? gives the story as an "anecdote handed down in Gov. Leverett's family ;" and that all the later accounts are traceable to a common source,-the "alarm" as recorded by Mather. Re- specting the account given by Hadley's able historian, Mr. Sheldon says :

" Sylvester Judd, the most noted antiquary of the Connecticut Valley, writing one hundred years later than Ilotchinson, criticises sharply the account by Stiles, thinks Ifoyt mistook the date of the occurrence, and says : 'The attack was undoubtedly upon the outskirts of the town, probably at the north end. The approach of the Indians may have been observed by Goffe from hischamber, which had a window toward the east. There is no reason to believe there was a large body of Indians, but the people, being unaccustomed to war, needed Goffe to arrange and order them. The Indians appear to have fled after a short skir- mish.' Thus the proportions of the story are reduced by Judd. The meeting- house was not surrounded, the attack was at the north end of the town, and there was but a slight skirmish, after all!" Mr. Sheldon concludes that the alarm of September proceeded from an attack on Deerfield, which occurred on that day; that in the real attack, June 12, 1676, there was no need of angelic interposition, as Hadley was then provided with ample means of defense; and that "Gen. Goffe knew that Hadley was in no danger of capture, and that there was no vecasion for leaving his hiding-place, thereby exposing himself, his com- panion in exile, and his generous protectors to certain destruction."

Mr. Sheldon also notes the absence of any "aneedote" or tradition in the families of those who were present and eye- witnesses of the events of the time.

This view of the subject would appear to be strengthened by the fact that the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, in his communi- cation to Mr. Mather, Sept. 15, 1676, given minute detail of the events which occurred in the valley, inclusive of those at Hadley, from August 24th preceding to the date of his letter, yet mentions no attack upon that town. The claim by Mr. Judd respecting the affair of September 1st-that Mather dare not publish more in 1676, and that Hubbard, who " did not mention the fight," was silent for prudential reasons-is some- what gratuitous in the light of Mr. Mather's unreserved ac- count of the assault of June 12th ; for history seems equally divided as to the date of the angel's advent. Goffe's exposure at either time was equally dangerous. Moreover, Mr. Judd overlooked the fact that the " window toward the east," at Mr. Russell's, could not aid the judges' vision while residing at the house of Mr. Tilton or Lieut. Smith. Mr. Judd him- self had said that during the war the judges "could not have

2 l'ide chapter on the " Regicides."

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HISTORY OF HIAMPSIIIRE COUNTY.

been concealed at Mr. Russell's." It is noticeable that none of the accounts respecting the " fight" of September Ist men- tion the firing of a single gun, or the wounding or killing of any soldiers or savages. There is a masterly marching to and fro, but no slaughter.

Granting the exigence, either on September 1st or June 12th,* it might readily be admitted that Goffe-brave, deter- mined, and noble-would have become the angel of Hadley, as he was its most noted guest save one. Such a crisis would be a reasonable basis for the tradition, but the latter may not be used to prove the existence of the former. May not the absorbing legend be referable to some other origin ?

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History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 110

Author: L.H. Everts & Co Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts Number of Pages: 700

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700