USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Woburn > The history of Woburn, Middlesex County, Mass. from the grant of its territory to Charlestown, in 1640, to the year 1680 > Part 21
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In 1725 occurred that bloody encounter with Indians, which is commonly distinguished as Lovewell's Fight. It took place, May 8, O. S., and its centennial anniversary was commemorated on the spot, in an address before a large and intelligent audience by Charles S. Davies, Esq., on the corresponding day in N. S., May 19, 1825. As a considerable number of the English, who fought in this engagement, were either inhabitants of Woburn, or had originated from it, and as the event of it was heard by the people of this place, at the time, with bitter lamentation or with deep concern, a particular account of it will not, I presume, be uninteresting to their descendants at this dis- tant day.
During the war carried on by the English against the Abena-
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quis or Eastern Indians, from 1722 to 1726, the government of Massachusetts, to encourage scouting parties for the defence of the frontiers, offered a bounty for Indian scalps and captives in 1723, which was raised the next year to £100 cach. With a view to obtaining this bounty, as well as from motives of patriot- ism, Capt. John Lovewell, of Dunstable, raised a company of volunteers, and made two successful expeditions in pursuit of Indians in December 1724, and early in 1725. In the latter expedition of the two, he and his men killed ten Indians, whom they surprised lying round a fire asleep near a pond in Wake- field, N. H., since called Lovewell's Pond; 17 and bringing their scalps to Boston, they were paid £1,000 for them out of the public treasury.17 Emboldened by this repeated success, he quickly after undertook a third expedition for the same object. On the 16th of April, 1725, he and forty-five others, inclusively of a surgeon and a chaplain, marched from Dunstable for the Indian villages at Pigwacket near the upper part of Saco River, once the residence of a powerful tribe of Indians, and since places of their occasional resort.17 Before he had proceeded far, one of his men disabled by lameness, and another by an old wound, were dismissed and returned home. When they had reached the great Ossipee pond, another of the company falling sick, they halted, and built a small fort, which might serve as a place of refuge in case of necessity.17 Here they left the sick man, and the surgeon to take care of him, and eight other men for a guard, together with a considerable quantity of provision for their own use, on their return.17
The company was now reduced to thirty-four, inclusively of the captain; and their names (excepting that of one who fled at the beginning of the fight, which it was therefore thought best to consign to oblivion) were as follows : viz, Capt. John Lovewell, Lieutenants Joseph Farwell and Jonathan Robbins, Ensign John Harwood, Sergeant Noah Johnson, Robert Usher and Samuel Whiting of Dunstable; Ensign Seth Wyman, Corporal Thomas Richardson, Timothy Richardson, Ichabod Johnson and
17 Belknap's New Hampshire, in one vol., pp. 209, 210, etc. See also Hutchinson's History, Vol. II., pp. 314, 315.
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Josiah Johnson of Woburn ; Eleazar Davis, Josiah Davis, Josiah Jones, David Melvin, Eleazar Melvin, Jacob Farrar and Joseph Farrar of Concord; Mr Jonathan Fry of Andover, Chaplain ; Sergeant Jacob Fullam of Weston; Corporal Edward Ling- field of Nutfield, now Londonderry ; Jonathan Kittredge and Solomon Keyes of Billerica; John Jefts, Daniel Woods, Thomas Woods, John Chamberlain, Elias Barron, Isaac Lakin and Joseph Gilson of Groton; and Ebenezer Ayer and Abiel Asten of Haverhill.17 Pursuing their journey northward, about twenty-two miles in a direct course, but forty miles by the indi- rect road they are supposed to have taken, they came to a pond near the Pigwacket villages by the Saco, and now within the township of Fryburg, by the side of which pond they encamped.17 On Saturday, May 8 (the day so fatal to many of them-so full of peril to them all), very carly in the morning, while they were at prayers, they heard a gun discharge ; and, not long after, they espied an Indian standing on a point of land, which ran into the pond, more than a mile distant. This point was a noted fishing place : and, at the present day, there seems good reason to believe that the Indian they observed was not stationed there with any insidious design, but was entirely ignorant of there being any English in the neighborhood, and that the gun which they heard, he had fired at a flock of ducks.17 But Captain Lovewell and company had been alarmed the night before by sundry noises, which they had attributed to enemies; and now the sight of this solitary Indian confirmed them in the persua- sion that their suspicions had been well founded; that a party of the enemy was lying in wait between him and them; and that he had been set where he stood for a decoy to draw them that way. Accordingly, a consultation was held by Captain Love- well with his men, whether they should attempt a retreat, or venture to face and fight an enemy, whom they could not expect, as they had hoped, to take by surprise. Their answer generally was, " We came out to meet the Enemy; we have all along prayed God we might find 'em; and we had rather trust Provi- dence with our lives, yea, die for our country, than try to return, without seeing them, if we may, and be called cowards for our
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pains."18 Upon receiving this bold reply, the captain at once decided, though with some misgivings, and, apparently, against his own judgment, to go forward : and, still supposing the enemy to be before him, he ordered his men to lay down their paeks where they were, that they might be as free from ineum- brance as possible; to march with the utmost circumspection, and in perfect readiness for an assault at an instant's warning.
But, while Capt. Lovewell, with his men, was moving cautiously onward, expecting that his wily foes lay concealed in his front, they were in reality gathering and laying wait for him in his reur. For it so happened, that in his march he crossed a carrying place, to which, presently after he left it, came two parties of Indians, with Paugus, a noted chief, and Wahwa at their head, who had been scouting down Saco river, and were now on their return to the lower village of Pigwacket, situate upon a meadow by the Saco, about a mile and a half from the pond.17 These Indians, perceiving the tracks of Lovewell's company at the carrying place, traced them back to their packs, which they immediately seized upon and removed for their own use ; and ascertaining by counting them, that their owners were fewer in number than themselves, they skulked in ambush hard by, and watched for their return. In the mean while, as Capt. Lovewell and men were marching round the pond, to come at the place where they had seen the Indian standing, they met him returning by another path to the village, with his game and two fowling pieces in his hands. Several of the company fired upon him, and he returned the fire, and mortally wounded Capt. Love- well, it was supposed, though he made but little complaint, and was able to keep on his march. Ensign Wyman then fired and killed the Indian; and another took his scalp. Having dis- covered no enemy in their march, as they had anticipated, the company now bent their way back toward the place where they had left their packs. But, when they had reached the spot, and while they were looking for their baggage, which had been removed, (it being about 10 o'clock in the forenoon) the Indians
18 Historical Memoirs, etc., by Rev. Thomas Symmes, of Bradford.
17*
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rose in two bodies in their front and in their rear; and, with a hideous yell, ran towards them with their arms presented. The English likewise instantly presented arms, and ran to meet them. Both parties fired when they had come within a few yards of each other; and many of the Indians were killed at once, while the English, most of them, escaped the first shot unhurt. But so superior were the Indians to the English in respect to numbers, that nine of the latter were slain quickly after. These were, Capt. Lovewell, Sergeant Fullam, Ensign Harwood, John Jefts, Jonathan Kittredge, Daniel Woods, Ichabod Johnson, Thomas Woods, and Josiah Davis. Three also were badly wounded, viz: Lieut. Farwell, Lieut. Robbins and Robert Usher; and the rest, perceiving the Indians were endeavoring to surround them, retreated to the pond, which now covered their rear, while they were in some measure sheltered in other quarters by a few large pine trees, and by a rocky point running into the pond.
In this position, under the direction of Ensign Wyman, upon whom devolved the command after Capt. Lovewell was killed, and the two Lieutenants, Farwell and Robbins, were disabled by their wounds, they maintained a sharp, resolute , contest till about night. To intimidate them, the Indians kept up a constant howling like wolves, and barking like dogs, and all manner of hideous noises ; but the English answered them only by frequent shouts and huzzas, such as they had made at firing their first round. At one time, some of the Indians holding up ropes to them, proposed to them to ask for quarter, but they spiritedly replied, they would take none but at the muzzle of their guns. Nothwithstanding their inferiority in number to the Indians, and the faintness they experienced for want of food, of which they had taken none since early in the morning, they continued fight- ing courageously as men resolved to die rather than yield.
It was apparently during the afternoon fight, that Pangus, a noted Indian chief, was killed by John Chamberlain of Groton, who knew him. In the engagement, their guns having become foul, they both went to the pond about the same time to cleanse them, and there met. The following lively description of their
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encounter, confirmed in the main by tradition, though embellished probably by fancy in some of its minor circumstances, is quoted by Lemuel Shattuck, Esq., in his History of Concord, from the " Philadelphia Album," in 1828.
" They slowly and with equal movements cleansed their guns and took their stations on the outer border of the beach. 'Now, Paugus,' said Chamberlain, ' I'll have you ;' and with the quick- ness and steadiness of an old hunter, sprung to loading his rifle. ' Na, na, me have you,' replied Paugus ; and he handled his gun with a dexterity that made the bold heart of Chamberlain beat quick, and he almost raised his eyes to take his last look upon the sun. They rammed their cartridges, and each at the same instant cast his ramrod upon the sand. 'I'll have you, Paugus,' shouted Chamberlain, as in his desperation he almost resolved to rush upon the savage, with the breech of his rifle, lest he should receive his bullets before he could load. The woods across the pond cchoed back the shout. Paugus trembled as he applied his powder-horn to the priming; Chamberlain heard the grains of his powder rattle lightly upon the leaves beneath his feet. Chamberlain struck his gun breech violently upon the ground - the rifle primed herself, he aimed, and his bullets whistled through the heart of Paugus. He fell, and as he went down, the bullet from the mouth of his ascending rifle touched the hair upon the crown of Chamberlain, and passed off with- out avenging the death of its dreadful master." 19
The fight was maintained with great obstinacy and resolution on both sides; and continued, with but little intermission, about ten hours. Shortly after sunset, the Indians withdrew, being the first to desist and quit the ground. They carried with them their wounded and most of their dead; and left the bodies of Lovewell, and the others whom they had killed at the commence- ment of the action, unscalped ; and so much had they suffered in the fight, through the firm resistance and skilful manœuvring of the English, that they went off with greatly reduced numbers. In accounts subsequently received, it was stated, that "they were
19 Shattuck's History, p. 69.
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seventy in the whole, whereof forty were said to be killed on the spot, eighteen more died of their wounds, and that twelve only returned."
About midnight, after the moon had risen, the remnant of Capt. Lovewell's company, who were able to travel, withdrew from the field, and began their march towards the fort, which they had built in coming, for a refuge. They left behind the bodies of their nine companions who were killed at the com- mencement of the engagement ; also Jacob Farrar, who was just expiring ; and Licut. Robbins and Robert Usher, who were mortally wounded, and unable to accompany them. At parting, Lieut. Robbins requested them to load his gun, and leave it with him, saying, " The Indians will come in the morning to scalp me, and I'll kill one more of 'em, if I can." They com- plied with his request: but the Indians do not appear to have returned to the ground; and his body and those of the other two were shortly after found dead, and lying, apparently, where they severally breathed their last. They who marched from this fatal spot were twenty in number, of whom cleven had been badly wounded. But their troubles did not cease upon quitting the field of battle. They suffered extremely from hunger; their provisions having fallen into the hands of the Indians on the morning of the attack.
They had proceeded but about a mile and a half in their way, when four of them, viz : Lieut. Farwell, Mr. Frye, Eleazar Davis and Josiah Jones, were compelled, by the anguish of their wounds, to stop, receiving encouragement from the rest, that as soon as they reached the fort, they would send some of the guard they had left there, to their assistance. Shortly after, on coming to a thick piece of woods, the fear of making a track, by which the Indians might discover and follow them, led the remainder of this little band to separate into three divisions, and one of these divisions consisting of Ensign Wyman and four others, being actually pursued by three Indians to a considerable distance, Elias Barron, an individual belonging to it, went astray from his companions ; and, though his gun case was found after- wards by the side of Ossipee river, yet he himself was never more
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heard from. The other two divisions, eleven men in all, at length recovered the fort. But to their surprise and grief, they found it abandoned by those whom they had left there, who had been frightened away by a terrific report brought them by the nameless deserter, who had basely run from his post, and forsaken his friends, when they most needed him, at the commencement of the battle. Here, however, they were presently rejoiced by the arrival of Solomon Keyes, who was not with them when they began their march from the battle ground, and who had been preserved to see them by means truly astonishing, as well as unex- pected to himself. His report was, that, on the day of battle, after continuing to fight till, through loss of blood from three wounds he had received, he could stand no longer, he crawled to Ensign Wyman, and told him, " He was a dead man: But (says he) if it be possible, I'll get out of the way of the Indians, that they mayn't get my scalp." In his efforts to reach a place where the Indians would not discover him, he lighted, provi- dentially, upon a canoe in the pond : and, rolling himself into it, he was driven by the wind a considerable distance towards the fort; and, then, being wonderfully strengthened, he was enabled to perform the rest of the journey on foot, and so as to come to the fort about the same time that the eleven just referred to did.20 And now these twelve men, having refreshed themselves with provisions, which they found at the fort, proceeded to Dun- stable, where they arrived, May 13, at night, being the fifth day after the engagement. On May 15, they were rejoined by Ensign Wyman and three of his party. By him they were told that they had not tasted food of any sort from Saturday morn- ing, the day of the fight, till the Wednesday following: when two mouse-squirrels, which they caught and roasted whole, seemed a delicious morsel to them; and that, afterwards, par- tridges and other game which they killed, comfortably supplied their wants the rest of their journey.30
In the mean while, their four companions, whom they had left behind shortly after commencing their march from the battle- field, waited patiently several days, in hope of receiving the
20 Symmes' Memoirs, etc.
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assistance from the fort which they had encouraged them to expect, but which they failed to send them, in consequence of their finding the fort deserted. But at length these four for- saken ones, giving up the prospect of help in despair, set out themselves on their way homeward, though their wounds had become corrupt for want of dressing, and they themselves were almost famished with hunger. Two of them, Davis and Jones, after acute suffering, succeeded in their attempts to reach the English settlements, the former coming in at Berwick, the latter at Saco. But the effort proved too great for Licut. Far- well and Mr. Fry. According to information subsequently given by Davis, who kept with them both as long as they were able to travel, Fry first gave up; but Farwell held out several days, till he had come within a few miles of the fort, and they both doubtless died in the places where they were severally left by Davis, being never seen or heard from more. Both these gentlemen were very highly esteemed, and their deaths were deeply lamented.
But there was something peculiarly affecting in the circum- stances of the death of Mr. Fry, the chaplain. He was the son of Mr. James Fry, of Andover, was graduated at Harvard Col- lege, 1723; and at his decease had a journal, which he kept of the expedition, in his pocket. He had much endeared himself to the company, both by the excelleney of his devotional per- formances as chaplain, and also by his personal courage and readiness to share with them in their dangers and hardships. In the afternoon of the day of battle, he received a severe wound fighting with the rest; and, being disabled by it from further active service, he was repeatedly heard praying aloud, that God would preserve and prosper his brethren in arms, in their then sharp conflict. After the fight had ceased, he travelled with the rest a little way towards the fort; and, then, with Farwell, Davis, and Jones, was left behind, being unable to go any further. Here he stayed with them several days, looking in vain for help from the fort; and then set forward in company with them again. But, after travelling several miles with them, per- ceiving his strength fail him, and his end draw near, Mr. Fry
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lay down, and, addressing Farwell and Davis, desired them not to wait for him, for that he felt himself to be a dying man, and should never rise any more. He likewise charged Davis, if God should spare his life to get home, to go and tell his father, " that he expected in a few hours to be in eternity ; and that he was not afraid to die."20 This is the last that is known of this good man. He probably breathed his last in the place and posture in which his companions left him. No monument marks the spot where his untimely decease took place, and where his remains rest. But an elm tree, which he planted with his own hands before his father's door in Andover, still lives, or did recently, and will be, while it stands, a memorial of him.
Such was the issue of this disastrous conflict. Twelve of our men lay dead or dying on the field of battle: two were left in their retreat to die of their wounds in the wilderness; and one went astray, and was never after heard of. Of the thirty-three English who engaged in the fight, only eighteen lived to return to their families : and of these, only nine, viz., Ensign Wyman, Edward Lingfield, Thomas Richardson, David Melvin, Eleazar Melvin, Ebenezer Ayer, Abiel Asten, Joseph Farrar, and Joseph Gilson, escaped any considerable injury. The other nine, viz, Sergt. Noah Johnson, Timothy Richardson, Josiah Johnson, Samuel Whiting, John Chamberlain, Isaac Lakin, Eleazar Davis, Josiah Jones, and Solomon Keyes, were badly wounded, and some of them were made cripples or invalids for life.
The report of this fight and its lamentable result excited deep concern, as well as sympathy for afflicted survivors, throughout the community. In a message from Lieut. Governor Went- worth of New Hampshire to the House of Representatives there, May 17, 1725, he thus alludes to this melancholy affair. " I received an express from Lieut. Governor Dummer, giving an account that Capt. Lovewell met a party of Indians at or near Pigwacket, which broke Capt. Lovewell's company in pieces. I have sent fifty-two men, under command of Capt. John Chesley, to make the best of his way to Ossapy and Pigwacket, and thence make diligent search for Capt. Lovewell's fort, &c., and to relieve any wounded men they may meet in their way thither or
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elsewhere." The House, in their answer, May 22, say : " As for the misfortune of Capt. Lovewell and his men, we desire to be humble before God for so great a frown of his Providence, and thank your Honour for sending a company for the relief of any that may be yet alive." But the company of men sent on this benevolent errand by Lieut. Governor Wentworth, some how or other, missed their way, and never reached the scene of the engagement. But Col. Tyng of Massachusetts, with a com- pany of men from Dunstable, went to the spot, and there found and buried beneath an aged pine the twelve men of ours that had been left there, dead or dying, on the night after the battle, and carved their names on the neighboring trees. He also dis- covered there three graves, one of which being opened was found to contain the body of Paugus, the Indian chief, killed by Chamberlain, as above related. Rev. Dr. Belknap, who visited the place in 1784, observes in a note to his History of New Hampshire,21 that " the names of the dead, on the trees, and the holes where balls had entered and been cut out, were [then] plainly visible. ... The trees had the appearance of being very old, and one of them was fallen."
The intelligence of Lovewell's fight was heard at Woburn with bitter mourning and lamentation. Incluisively of Sergt. Noah Johnson (a native of Woburn, though then an inhabitant of Dunstable) six of her sons, belonging to three of her most numerous and respectable families, and four of them grandsons of Maj. William Johnson, had been engaged in it. Of these six men, three were wounded, and one slain. The wounded persons, Timothy Richardson, Noah Johnson and Josiah John - son seem all to have ultimately recovered. But the death of Ichabod Jolmson, who fell in the beginning of the battle, proved too hard a stroke for his fond father. Capt. Edward Johnson, born March 19, 1658, was the second son of Maj. William Johnson, and a grandson of Capt. Edward Johnson, one of the principal settlers of the town, whose name he bore, and who remembered him in his will. He lived about half a mile from where Burlington meeting-house was afterwards built, in a house
" Belknap's New Hampshire, p. 212, note.
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on the most easterly path to Shawshin, now the road to Bedford, opposite to Mr. Alfred B. Shaw's, the cellar of which was, till recently, visible; and through life he stood high among his fellow-townsmen, in reputation and usefulness. He was many years one of the Selectmen of Woburn; its representative to the General Court in 1700, and about 1720ª was chosen a deacon of the church. He was also a gentleman of handsome property for that day ; and was blessed by his first wife, Sarah Walker, with seven children, and with two by his second wife, widow Abigail Thompson, whose maiden name was Gardiner. But of these nine children, though all were deservedly dear to him, Ichabod, the youngest son by his first wife, appears to have been his Benjamin, the darling of his heart ; and when the news of the sudden, bloody death of this favorite child, reached his ear, he was so overcome by it, as that his gray hairs were brought" quickly down with sorrow to the grave. Neither honor, nor wealth, nor any worldly blessing could now yield him consola- tion or support. His surviving sons and daughters, his numer- ous relatives and friends, all rose up to comfort him, but in vain. Even that holy religion which he professed (for want doubtless of a due application on his part of its blessed truths, promises and exhortations to his own case) failed to minister its soothing, healing balm to his wounded spirit. He seems to have imagined, that with Ichabod the glory of his house had departed (as the name denotes) ; and to have sunk in grief and despond- ency. Before three months from the death of his son had fully elapsed, the father went down to the grave mourning. He died August 7, 1725, in the 68th year of his age; and as a venerable granddaughter of his (Miss Abigail Johnson) once told me, he died of a broken heart.
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