USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume I > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
On the other hand Cotton Mather wrote this to explain the posi- tion of the English and the Indians :
"That the Heathen people amongst whom we live, and whose land the Lord God of our Fathers hath given to us for a rightful pos- session have at sundry times been plotting mischievous devices against that part of the English Israel, which is seated in these goings down
12. Quoted in Hart. Vol. I, pp. 541-42.
136
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
of the sun, no man that is an inhabitant of any considerable standing can be ignorant." (The italics are ours.) And the Reverend Wil- liam Hubbard, of Ipswich, wrote, in 1677, his views on the beginning of King Philip's War:
"The Devil, who was a Murderer from the Beginning, had so filled the Heart of this savage Miscreant with Envy and Malice against the English" . . . , etc.13
Philip, the son of Massasoit, Chief of the Wampanoags, other- wise known as Metacom, was a leader fully conscious of the wrongs his race had suffered at the hands of the white men. His common sense told him that there could be no adjustment of differences except through war, and his pride led him to inform an emissary from the Massachusetts Governor that he would treat with King Charles, but not with his subjects. Such was the opponent of the colonists, evi- dently a man of kindliness and dignity until driven to the warpath. Apparently Philip did not intend to strike until the spring of 1676, but the execution at Plymouth of three Indians charged with murder- ing one John Sassamon, a native who revealed Philip's plans to the government, precipitated the conflict in June, 1675. The English were provoked by the Indians to the shedding of the first blood in the belief that the party which did this would finally be defeated.
It was in September of that year that Essex County suffered a great military disaster in the annihilation of Captain Lothrop's com- pany, described by a contemporary writer as "a choice company of young men, the very flower of the County of Essex, none of whom were ashamed to speak with the enemy at the gate," and ever after- wards known as "The Flower of Essex."
The town of Hadley, the headquarters of the troops in Connecti- cut, ran short of provisions, and Captain Lothrop, a Beverly man,' was detailed to go to Deerfield with his company and bring back a large amount of grain, estimated at 3,000 bushels, stacked in the fields and abandoned by the farmers at the Indians' approach. Having secured the grain, Lothrop began the return march to Hadley on the 18th of September without suspecting that he was in danger, as he had seen no Indians. Hoyt, in his "Indian Wars," describes what followed :
13. Old South Leaflets, No. 88.
I37
RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIANS AND WHITE MEN
"At the village now called Muddy Brook, in the south- erly part of Deerfield, the road crossed a small stream, bor- dered by a narrow morass, from which the village has its name; though more appropriately it should be denominated Bloody Brook, by which it is sometimes known. . . On discovering Lothrop's march, a body of upwards of seven hundred Indians planted themselves in ambuscade at the point of crossing, and lay in waiting. Without scouring the woods in front or flank, or suspecting the snare for him, Lothrop arrived at the fatal spot, crossed the morass with the principal part of his force, and probably halted to allow his teams to drag through their loads. The critical moment had arrived- the Indians instantly poured a heavy and destructive fire upon the column, and rushed furiously to the attack. Confusion and dismay succeeded. The troops broke and scattered, fiercely pursued by the Indians, whose great superiority enabled them to attack at all points. Hopeless was the situa- tion of the scattered troops, and they resolved to sell their lives in a vigorous struggle. Covering themselves with trees, the bloody conflict now became a trial of skill in sharpshoot- ing, in which life was the stake. Difficult would it be to describe the havoc, barbarity and misery that ensued. The dead, the dying, the wounded, strewed the ground in all direc- tions; the devoted force was soon reduced to a small number, and the resistance became faint. At length the unequal strug- gle terminated in the annihilation of nearly the whole of the English, only seven or eight escaping to relate the dismal tale; and the wounded were indiscriminately butchered. Cap- tain Lothrop fell in the early part of the action."
The whole loss, including teamsters, amounted to ninety. Unsus- picious of their danger, it is said, the soldiers had laid aside their arms and were gathering grapes by the roadside when the destructive vol- leys surprised them.
This catastrophe sent a thrill of terror and dismay through all the New England colonies, and particularly through our own county, where nearly every town and village had lost one or more sons, and where Captain Lothrop was especially known, trusted, and loved. In
138
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
the year 1835 the burial place of Lothrop and his men was identified, and in 1838 a monument was erected in commemoration of the battle of Bloody Brook. At the laying of the cornerstone Edward Everett delivered a memorable address, saying in conclusion, "The 'Flower of Essex' shall bloom in undying remembrance, as the lapse of time shall continually develop, in richer abundance, the fruits of what was done and suffered by our fathers."
Beverly, undismayed by her losses in this battle, sent twenty-two men under Captain Gardner, of Salem, who had a total force of ninety-five men, to take part in the final and successful expedition against Philip. The Lynn company in King Philip's War was com- manded by Thomas Marshall, who had held a commission as cap- tain in Cromwell's Parliamentary Army. Captain Brockelbank, of Rowley, commanded a company. Between August 5, 1675, and Janu- ary 28, 1676, Newbury furnished forty-eight men and forty-six horses, and had thirty-seven men impressed, making eighty-five men out of one hundred and fifty-nine available. There could be no better illus- tration of the drain King Philip's War was upon the manpower and property of Essex County.
Though the actual fighting in King Philip's War took place at a distance, there were many repercussions near at home in form of small scale hostilities and threatened raids by the Indians dwelling among us.
A peculiar incident occurred in 1677 when some Eastern or Maine Indians captured a number of Salem fishing vessels. This is perhaps the only case where Indians defeated white men on the sea, but they seized "no less than thirteen ketches and captivated the men." As was the custom, a fast day was ordered, and the more practical means adopted of sending an armed ketch and crew of forty men to recover the plunder. "The Lord gave them success" is the brief and pious record of the outcome.
Other towns felt the burden of Indian hostility nearer home. The spirit of bloodshed had been aroused, and the savage with his reten- tive memory for wrongs done him could not forget the enslavement of his people, the massacre at Mystic, and the indignities inflicted upon the corpse of King Philip. Open warfare might be impossible, but the red man was in an excellent position to harass the settlers. He had lived as a neighbor of the white man, he knew his habits and the location of his dwelling.
I39
RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIANS AND WHITE MEN
"From the woodland shadows he could observe the move- ments of his victim unconscious of immediate danger. All this was as easy for the savages as it was difficult for the settler to be always on his guard against his invidious enemy.
"By day, or by night, no white man was safe. As the white man ploughed, or reaped, the fences along his fields were the crouching places of his inveterate enemy. The thickets by the roadside were likely at any moment to breathe forth a wisp of musket-smoke when the fatal bullet would speed to his heart. The savage lurked in his barns and out- houses, and his terror kept pace with the days as they grew. His women and children were not safe for a moment once they had crossed the threshold into the outer air."14
Andover's first alarm occurred in October, 1675, when, because of King Philip's War, no town felt safe against a sudden outbreak of the heretofore friendly Indians, or an onslaught of hostile tribes marching swiftly from remote encampments. Major Dennison wrote from Ipswich to the Council in Boston, October 28, 1675, referring particularly to Topsfield and Andover :
"It is hardly imaginable the panick fears that is upon our upland plantations & scattered places. . . .. The almighty and merciful God pity & helpe us. In much haste I brake off "15
On the next April 18 the dreaded attack came. Joseph Abbot had passed safely through the Narragansett fight of the winter before, and perhaps the savages knew the men who had helped murder their brethren. At any rate, they made for the house of George Abbot, one of the garrisons. Though Ephraim Stevens, a scout, gave the alarm, the Abbot brothers, at work in the fields, did not reach shelter before the Indians were upon them. Joseph Abbot defended him- self well, and killed one or more of the Indians, but was finally set upon by the whole band and cut down, while his brother Timothy, a lad of thirteen, was taken captive. On their retreat the savages attacked the house of Edward Faulkner and mutilated his cattle, finally putting a horse, an ox, and a cow into a shed and setting fire to it. So great was the terror in Andover that Lieutenant John Osgood wrote the Council, "for now we are so distressed to thinke that our
14. Sylvester, Vol. II, p. 304.
15. Sarah Loring Bailey: "Historical Sketches of Andover," pp. 169-70. Houghton. Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1880.
140
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
men are liable to bee shot whenever we stirr from our houses & our children taken by the cruell enemy, itt doe so distress us that wee know not what to doe, iff sum defence bee not made by ye forces above us wee must remove off iff we can tell where, before we have lost all lives & catell & horses by the enemy " and many families would have left the town if a chain of garrisons had not been estab- lished stretching across country from north of Haverhill to south of Medfield.
There is a tradition that a Mr. Bodwell, standing within the boundaries of what is now Lawrence, saw an Indian scouting across the river preparatory to the Andover raid. When the savage per- ceived Mr. Bodwell, thinking he was well out of range, he made an insulting gesture. But Bodwell's gun was of extraordinary length and power, and one shot brought the Indian down. At dusk that day Bodwell crossed the river, rolled the Indian's body into the water, and secured his valuable beaver skin robe.
On July 7, 1677, a raid on Amesbury resulted in the murder of men, women, and children, even though garrison-houses had been built in different sections of the town, a constant watch was kept, and no one ventured into his fields without a gun. The leader of the attack on Amesbury was one Simon, a renegade "Praying Indian," who, when the war broke out, seized the opportunity to get vengeance upon those towards whom he felt a grudge, and became the terror of Haverhill, Amesbury, and Bradford. One writer speaks of him "As the arch-villain and incendiary of all the Eastern Indians."
During the year 1677, while the war was at its height, two Indians were brought as captives to Marblehead. Their fate is thus por- trayed by the Reverend Increase Mather in a letter dated May 23 :
"Sabbath night was sennight, the women at Marblehead, as they came out of the meeting-house, fell upon two Indians that were brought in as captives, and in a tumultuous way, very barbarously murdered them."
Haverhill, which as the frontier town, was to experience more Indian hostilities than any other Essex County settlement, suffered no deaths until May 2, 1676, when Ephraim Kingsbury was killed. The next day Simon, with two other Praying Indians, made a mur- derous attack on Bradford.
14I
RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIANS AND WHITE MEN
With the end of King Philip's War came a dozen years of com- parative peace for Essex County, followed by the French and Indian War, during which our northeastern settlements, and particularly Haverhill, lived in continued dread of the Abnaki, or Eastern Indians. For forty years or more there was the unceasing threat of forays. raids, burning of isolated farmhouses, and slaughter or captivity of peaceful settlers, until hatred of the Frenchman and the Indian became a New England tradition, and about the conflict there grew up a body of folklore, of tales of the heroic defence of some garrison house, of the pursuit of some marauding party, of miraculous escape from a savage and merciless foe.16
Salem and the other coastwise towns were as usual free from actual attack during this period, but many of their men served on the various expeditions to the east such as those to Casco Bay, to Port Royal, and to Montreal and Quebec. Their exploits will be dealt with in the chapter on Military History, while our attention will be centered on our own northeastern towns.
On August 13, 1690, a small party of Indians appeared in the northerly part of Haverhill, killed Daniel Bradley, shot Nathaniel Singletary, and took the latter's son prisoner. After scalping the elder Singletary, the Indians began a rapid retreat, but their young prisoner managed to escape and returned to his home the same day. As a result of an appeal to the General Court the Ipswich Horse was ordered to Haverhill as a place of rendezvous on August 29, but on October 17 the Indians made another foray and took prisoner Ezra Rolfe, who died three days later.
In 1693 it was suggested at the Haverhill town meeting that the settlement should be abandoned and the people move away to safer locations, but the idea was rejected as being too cowardly, and requir- ing sacrifice of hard-earned farms and homes. Instead, measures of protection were taken : the selectmen appointed six garrisons and four houses of refuge, besides watch-houses. The garrisons and refuges were houses selected because of their convenient situation for the families to resort to in case of alarm, and because they were some- what adapted to defense against the quick, impatient attacks of the savages. Mirick, the historian of Haverhill, gives an interesting
16. Hart : "Commonwealth History of Massachusetts," Vol. II. pp. 63-64.
142
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
description of what must have been the typical Essex County garrison house :
"Most of the garrisons, and two of the houses of refuge (those belonging to Joseph and Nathaniel Peaselee), were built of brick, and were two stories high; those that were not built of this material had a single laying of it between the outer and inner walls. They had but one outside door, which was often so small that but one person could enter at a time; their windows were about two feet and a half in length, eighteen inches in breadth, and were secured on the inside with iron bars. Their glass was very small, cut in the shape of a dia- mond, was extremely thick and fastened in with lead instead of putty. There were generally but two rooms in the base- ment story, and tradition says that they entered the chamber with the help of a ladder, instead of stairs, so that the inmates could retreat into them and take it up if the basement story should be taken by the enemy. Their fire places were of such enormous size that they could burn their wood sled-length very conveniently; and the ovens opened on the outside of the building, generally at one end, behind the fire-places. They were of such dimensions that we should suppose a sufficient quantity of bread might be baked in them to supply a regi- ment of hungry mouths."
Many families who lived in the outskirts of the town removed with their families to the vicinity of these garrisons or houses of refuge. Soldiers were sent from Newbury and other places to Haver- hill, Amesbury, and Salisbury. Newbury, though sheltered from attacks on the north, kept fifty-one persons on watch every night. And to add to the panic, rumors circulated such as that for which Isaac Morrill was arrested at Newbury on May 29, 1690. It was believed that he was enticing Indians and negro servants to steal a vessel, go to Canada, raise a force of four or five hundred Indians and three hundred Canadians, and with them return and destroy Haver- hill and Amesbury.
The danger was real enough without fantastic rumors, as savages filled the woods in every direction, and the list of deaths at the hands of Indians a long one.
143
RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIANS AND WHITE MEN
On July 7 three persons were killed at Amesbury; on August 31 Samuel Parker was shot while cutting hay in his meadow in the East Parish of Haverhill; on June 16, 1691, John Robie, whose wife had just died, leaving him with seven children, the oldest not quite eleven years old, was killed in the North Parish, and Nathaniel Ladd died of wounds received the same day. A family was killed at Rowley and one at Haverhill in October, 1691, and on July 18, 1692, Hannah Whittaker was slain. In August, John Keezar, who had left his gun beside a tree while he mowed, found that an Indian had taken posses- sion of it, and was aiming at him with the mocking words, "Me kill you now." With a shout Keezar ran toward the Indian, brandishing his scythe. The Indian dropped the gun and fled, swiftly pursued by Keezar, who, overtaking him, plunged the scythe into his bowels. In 1693 only one person, Jonathan Franklin, was killed in Haverhill.
With the year 1695 the Indian attacks on our frontier towns began again with renewed intensity. In August of that year the two children of Hannah Whittaker, killed in 1692, were wounded. In this foray Isaac Bradley, aged fifteen, and Joseph Whittaker, aged eleven, were taken captive. The Indians took the boys to Lake Winnipe- saukee and placed them in the hands of an Indian family who treated them kindly and taught them the native language. Learning that they were to be taken to Canada in the spring the boys determined to escape, and on a bright moonlight night in April put their plan into execution. Their flight was accompanied by all the dangers and narrow escapes one associates with such an exploit. The boys trav- eled by night and hid in hollow logs by day. When the dogs of the Indian pursuers discovered them, they quieted the animals by giving them their whole supply of moose meat. Continuing on they lived upon roots, buds, berries, and even raw turtle and pigeon. They blundered into an Indian camp, but retreated before their presence was discovered. At length they came upon a stream and having the good sense to follow it, arrived at Saco Fort nine days after they had started their flight, from whence they eventually returned to Haverhill.
Another raid occurred on August 15, 1696, in which Jonathan Haynes and his four children were taken prisoners. Jonathan and his eldest son escaped, but the father, worn out by lack of food and by fatigue, would have died in the wilderness had not his sixteen-year-old son continued on to Saco, where he secured some provisions, and then
144
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
returned to rescue his father. The other children were sold for serv- ants in Canada, and Mary, the eighteen-year-old daughter, was ran- somed, it is believed, the next winter, for one hundred pounds of tobacco. The younger boys never returned. As sometimes happened, they became contented in their new life, refused to leave Canada, and many years later were seen there by members of the family who found a means to identify the two old men, now aged, respectively, seventy- three and sixty-eight.
The most famous exploit of an Essex County captive in Indian hands was that of Hannah Duston, which resulted from the raid of March 15, 1697. About twenty Indians made such a sudden attack upon the westerly part of the town that they had accomplished their purpose and retreated before the armed forces could arrive upon the scene. In this short space of time they plundered and burned nine houses, killed twenty-seven, of whom fifteen were children, and car- ried away thirteen prisoners.
The first house attacked was that of Thomas Duston, which shel- tered his twelve children and his wife, the latter being still in bed recov- ering from the birth of the youngest only six days before. Duston had seen the enemy approaching and ran for the house. He started the children toward the nearest garrison, and then finding the Indians upon him, decided that at least he could rescue one of his children. Mount- ing his horse he spurred after them, but unable to determine which one to save, he dismounted and shielding himself behind his horse held the skulking Indians at bay until the young ones had all reached a place of safety.
In the meantime another party of the raiders had captured Mrs. Neff, the nurse, who was trying to escape with the Duston baby, and ordered Mrs. Duston to arise and come with them. It is said that she only had time to secure one shoe before starting on her terrible journey. Such of the captives as could not keep up with the swift march were tomahawked, the Duston baby's brains were dashed out, but weakened by illness and grief as she was, Hannah Duston con- tinued on through the cold winds, the mud and snow of March and arrived in good condition at the Indian camp on a small island six miles above the present State House at Concord, New Hampshire.
As seems to have been the Indian custom, the women prisoners were treated with kindness, though their Catholic captors would not
145
RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIANS AND WHITE MEN
allow them to retire to their Protestant devotions, and threatened to sell them to the French in Canada when they arrived there. This prospect, together with that of running the gauntlet, stripped, at the next Indian town was insupportable to Hannah Duston, who had already endured so much. Consequently, she and Samuel Leonard- son, an English youth taken prisoner at Worcester a year and a half before, planned the escape which was carried out at the end of April after a stay of five weeks at the island.
Leonardson had lived with the Indians so long in apparent con- tentment that they regarded him as one of themselves and talked freely with him, telling him, and through him Mrs. Duston, where to strike an enemy in order to kill him instantly and how to scalp a man. An hour before dawn Hannah Duston, Mary Neff, and the boy, armed with hatchets, attacked the sleeping Indians. Mrs. Duston killed her master, and Leonardson killed the man who had taught him where and how to strike. When the ten Indians lay dead (only a squaw and little boy escaped) the three whites scuttled all the canoes to impede pursuit, save one, collected what provisions there were, the gun of the master, and the tomahawk which had killed him, and set off down river in the remaining canoe. They had not gone far before Hannah remembered that they had forgotten to scalp their victims, and without the scalps as proof, who would believe their story. With a determination and courage that speaks volumes for the pioneer woman, she returned to the island, scalped the ten corpses, and wrapping her trophies in a piece of linen she had brought from home at the time of her capture, resumed her voyage.
After recovering from their fatigues, the famous trio journeyed to Boston accompanied by Thomas Duston, the gun, the tomahawk, and the ten scalps. Duston presented to the General Assembly a petition for recompense on account of "the just slaughter of so many of the Barbarians" and his own misfortunes, "having lost his estate in that calamity." Twenty-five pounds were voted to Duston; twelve pounds, ten shillings to Mary Neff, and twelve pounds, ten shillings to Samuel Leonardson.
It is an interesting fact that at the time of the raid Duston, who was a brickmaker, was building a new brick house. While his wife was still in captivity and nothing known of her fate this house was appointed a garrison and Duston himself made commander of it.
Essex-10
146
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
There have been various judgments expressed on Hannah Dus- ton's act in doing ten people, two men, two women, and six children, to death in their sleep. Cotton Mather, in "Magnalia," defends her as, "Being without the pale of the law, she was a law unto herself," but Mirick, in his history, informs us that there was some question in peoples' minds "concerning the justness of this truly heroic deed." However, perhaps the last word was said by a descendant of hers who visited Haverhill in 1880. When asked whether the killing and especially the scalping were, in his opinion, in accordance with the delicacy and sensibility so much admired in women, the old man's eye glared and in a voice of thunder he replied, "Not a bit on it. I glory in her spunk."
On November 25, 1879, a statue of Hannah Duston was erected upon the Common in front of the Haverhill City Hall and presented to the city by the Honorable E. J. M. Hale.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.