USA > Maine > York County > York > New England miniature; a history of York, Maine > Part 5
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Then on January 25, 1692, the Indians made their long- intended descent on York; a party of about one hundred and fifty of them carried out successfully the raid known as the Massacre. These Indians were part of a force which had started out early in January from their headquarters at Sillery in Canada on a scouting expedition on the report that the English were training a newly formed snowshoe company in preparation for an attack upon principal Indian villages. Hoping to break up this force before it was ready for battle, the Indians had roamed the woods as far south as Exeter, New Hampshire, but had met with no English troops. Their food having given out when they reached Berwick on the other side of Mount Agamenticus, they decided to forage in York. The Indian version of the events that followed is told in an account written by Champigny, the Intendant of Quebec, as it had been reported to him by Indians.
Quebec, October 5, 1692.
Towards the end of the month of January, 1692, 150 Abenaquis started out for the place which they had called Iarc only about two leagues away. They discovered near the place where they had camped the tracks of two Englishmen whom three of our people followed for quite a while, but they proved to be tracks of the day before. They had camped at the foot of the mountain from which place they could see the surrounding country very comfortably. As they were suffering from hunger they concluded that they would attack on the morrow. The snow was falling fast so they decided to wait for the fine weather. The War Chiefs, who are always listened to preferably than the heads of the tribes, were of advice to give battle in spite of the snow, hence they ad-
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vanced towards Iarc. At about a quarter of a league distant they saw a young Englishman who was setting traps. They caught him and later two others whom they saw a little fur- ther on. These Englishmen had only their knives. They halted to question the three captives. They smashed the heads of two of them and from a desire to get information they bound the third one.
The 150 warriors divided in two bands and one ad- vanced first on a garrison and the other on the English people's houses. It was at noon and the morrow of the Feast of Purification. They made themselves masters of the garrison and the houses without much resistance as they threw terror into the English inhabitants. There was one of our people killed in that attack in which, and the one that followed, we were victorious. For the time being our people divided into little groups of two or three and sacked the region for about one or two leagues in less than two or three hours. There were three garrisons and a very large number of English people's houses. All of these were burned. They had buried the dead Abenaquis in the cellar of one of the English houses before setting fire to it, and an Abenaquis, who was one of the war chiefs and who related all this, said there were more than 100 English killed and that he had himself counted them. They took away 80 prisoners. One could not estimate the slaughter of horses, cattle, sheep and pigs killed or burned. Our people spared a dozen little children and three old English women whom they took to the next garri- son. One of these old women, carrying a letter from an im- portant Englishman who was one of the prisoners, written at the command of one of our Abenaquis, summoned the English to give up the garrison or come out and fight them if they preferred; that they would wait nearly two days to let their people sleep, but that if they came other than to surrender they would break the heads of all the English prisoners; that they sent to them a few small children and some old women for whom they had compassion-of course the English would not have acted like that, but they could judge from that what their scorn for them was.
This account of Champigny's, based upon a verbal report of one of the "war chiefs" given some six months after the event, lends verification to traditions handed down through several gen- erations in certain York families. The "young Englishman" who was captured while he was setting traps was Arthur Bragdon 3rd, then about twenty-seven years of age, married to Sarah Masterson, daughter of Nathaniel, and living near his wife's parents in the Cider Hill district. The other two Englishmen whose heads were smashed still remain anonymous. The tradition is that young
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Bragdon saw a great many snowshoes piled against the boulder which has been known ever since as "Snowshoe Rock". The Indian camp "at the foot of the mountain" (surely it must have been Mount Agamenticus) was stated to have been "about a quarter of a league distant" from Snowshoe Rock, and that is in accord with the family legends.
When the Indian war chief reported the destruction of the garrisons, he apparently contradicted himself. At one point in Champigny's report it is flatly stated that "there were three garrisons and a very large number of English people's houses. All of these were burned", and yet, farther on, he states, "Our people spared a dozen little children and three old English women whom they took to the next garrison". These statements have caused disputes among historians who have tried to picture in detail the events of that day. That there were three garrisons is well estab- lished. It might well have been that the Indians mistook the tavern of Joseph Moulton on Scituate Men's Row for a garrison. The names of a number of Portsmouth people who were staying at the inn at the time appear in the casualty lists, possibly giving rise to the belief that because an unusual number of people were there the place was defended, therefore a garrison. There were seventy-five Indians in the party which concentrated on the house, so it can be readily believed that they quickly "made themselves masters" of it. Since the Indians were traveling from Mount Agamenticus in the direction of the village and Lower Town (York Harbor), the prisoners "they took to the next garrison" must have been left at Preble's, as it was the "next" large structure lying in the direction taken. The Preble garrison is still standing, in the middle of the twentieth century. A third garrison, George Norton's, stood somewhere between Coventry Hall (built a hun- dred years later ) and Meeting House Creek, perhaps what is now the Emerson Homestead. Down in Lower Town the Alcock garrison, near the shore of York River on what is now Varrell Lane, escaped destruction, as well it might have, for in the days that followed it was reported that Captain Job Alcock was obliged to provide for "a hundred souls" there, and among them there must have been some valiant defenders. The garrison at Scotland was also standing, but as the Indians did not range as far as that neighborhood, it does not figure in the story of the Massacre. Apparently the garrisons which the Indian chief counted were only those in the village.
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Wills and inventories of estates, as they appear in the records of the Probate Court, deeds on file in the Registry at Alfred, and reports preserved in the Massachusetts Archives and elsewhere, give clues to the names of many victims and where they had lived, and of some prisoners who were later able to return to York. From such study a chronicle of what transpired on that day may be deduced.
"The 150 warriors divided in two bands", and one of them went in a body towards the main settlement. This must have been the group which Arthur Bragdon discovered, for he would not have known that the many snowshoes had been piled against Snowshoe Rock if there had been as many as one hundred and fifty pairs of them; the boulder would have been completely covered. Joseph Moulton's tavern or "garrison" was quickly de- stroyed, but no doubt there was much time spent in rounding up the prisoners and in attacking and destroying the "very large number of English people's houses" in the neighborhood. Mean- while the other group struck off from the camp "at the foot of the mountain" towards Cider Hill, in another direction, and "for the time being our people divided into little groups of two or three and sacked the region".
Almost all of the houses from Bass Cove Creek, over the top of Cider Hill, and down towards the Scituate Men's Row were destroyed. But Thomas Moulton and his son Jeremiah, in their home below Cider Hill, escaped harm, as did Rowland Young, at Ferry Neck. There was quite general destruction in the area between York Corner and the river: Philip Adams, John Cook, Philip Cooper, John Parker, Henry Simpson, and others who lived there were killed or captured, but Samuel Bragdon, near the present-day Sewall's Bridge, escaped. On Scituate Men's Row not a building was left standing except the Preble garrison and Richard Banks's barn, but the church, on what is now Lindsay Road, was not destroyed.
The two bands combined into one, probably at the ruins of the Moulton tavern, where it was decided to turn over some children and old women to "the next garrison". Then the route led down through Lower Town or York Harbor, where the Indians destroyed houses but did not kill or capture all of the inhabitants; for "about a hundred", including the family of Samuel Donnell, found shelter in Alcock's garrison, in the vicinity of the present Harmon Hall. The raiders killed the Reverend Shubael Dummer in front of his home on Alcock's Neck.
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By now the Indians, slowed down by their prisoners and by the weight of their booty, were intent on departure. Apparently the whole band moved in a body, sending no more parties to attack houses lying off the main route. They seem to have gone across the beach at Long Sands; had they followed what is now Long Sands Road, they no doubt would have destroyed Stephen Preble's and John Banks's homes, which are still standing in the middle of this century. Somewhere near the present Webber Road, they killed Nathaniel Preble but did not destroy his family or his house. Farther on, the home of Joseph Preble, brother of Nathaniel, was unmolested, probably because it as well as Na- thaniel's stood about a thousand feet inland from the beach. No further destruction was done until the Indians reached Cape Neddick River, near its mouth, and there Jeremy Sheeres and family were slaughtered on the west bank and Peter Weare on the east. From there the raiders followed the river to its source at Cape Neddick (now Chase's) Pond, where they spent the night.
As soon as possible a messenger was sent to Portsmouth to report to the commander of the fort, which had been expected to furnish sufficient protection for the towns as far from it as Wells; and Captain John Floyd, with a detail of troops, was sent to York to take charge.
"When we came", he wrote in his report, "we found Capt. Alcock's and Lieut. Preble's Garisons both standing: the greatest part of the whole town was burned & rob'd & the Heathen had killed & carried Captive 140-48 of which are killed and 3 or 4 wounded & the rest Carried away . some seventeen or eighteen houses were burned".
This report must also be tempered. The Indians did not go west of Bass Cove Creek and they did not attack anywhere across York River, and Captain Floyd surely did not have time to inspect "the greatest part of the whole town". It is to be doubted whether he saw the havoc done on Cider Hill. Probably some seventeen or eighteen houses were burned in just Upper and Lower Town. Yet his presence and leadership must have been encouraging and helpful to the stunned people of York. On that day they could have been thankful that their town was no longer Gorgeana, "a poor village" that had been the first chartered English city in America. Massachusetts came with "too little and too late", to be sure, but it might not have come at all to the rescue of a Gorges plantation.
Of the victims there are some who merit a special account,
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either because of the sufferings they endured throughout the several Indian Wars or because of the indomitable spirit they displayed. Of these, Mary Rishworth (1660-1756) stands out most prominently. The daughter and only child of Edward and Susanna (Wheelwright) Rishworth, and granddaughter of Rever- end John Wheelwright, who founded the neighboring town of Wells, she was born in 1660 in the Rishworth home on Cider Hill, across the brook from Henry Sayward's house. Before she was twenty, she had been married twice, first when she was seven- teen or eighteen to a man named White, of whom nothing more is known, and then to John Sayward, a son of Henry Sayward, the builder of York's second church. By John Sayward (1659- 1689), she became mother of five children: Mary (1681-1767); Susanna (1683-); Esther (1685-1710); Hannah (1688-1761); and John (1690-1743), who was born after the death of his father. About 1690 she married Phineas Hull, son of Reverend Joseph Hull, sometime minister at York but better known for his pastorate at the Isles of Shoals. In 1691, she married her fourth husband, James Plaisted (1652-1710), of Kittery, whose father and brother had been killed by Indians and who, himself, had been an Indian captive.
Mather, in his Magnalia, gave the following account of her march to Canada as a captive:
Mrs. James Plaisted, the wife of James Plaisted, was made a captive by the Indians about three weeks after deliv- ery of a male child. They then took her with her infant off her bed and forced her to travel in her weakness the best part of a day without any respect or pity. At night the cold ground in the open air her lodging, and for many a day she had no nourishment but a little water with a little bear's flesh, which rendered her so feeble, that she with her infant were not far from totally starved. Upon her cries to God there was at length some supply sent in by her master's taking a moose, the broth whereof recovered her. But she must now travel many days thro' woods, and swamps and rocks and over mountains, and frost and snow until she could stir no far- ther. Sitting down to rest, she was not able to rise, until her diabolical master helped her up, which, when he did, he took her child from her, and carried it unto a river, where, stripping it of the few rags it had, he took it by the heels and against a tree dashed out its brains and flung it into the river. So he returned unto the miserable mother, telling her she was now eased of her burden and must walk faster than she did before.
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In Montreal, where she became a servant of Madame Cath- erine Gauchet, she was baptized December 8, 1693, under the name of Mary Magdalen. Redeemed in 1695, she returned to her husband in York, and had three Plaisted children: Lydia, 1696; Olive, 1698-1763; and Joseph, 1700-1752.
Of her Sayward children, two daughters were taken with her as captives to Canada: Mary, a child of ten or eleven, and Esther, six or seven; they lived the rest of their lives in Canada, the older as Mother Superior of a convent, her sister as the wife of a French gentleman.
Mrs. Plaisted lived to be ninety-six years old, always in- cluded among the most respected women in town, as is shown in the references to her in the church records. In an era when few women were considered capable of conducting their financial affairs independently, she bought and sold real estate, loaned money on mortgages, and built a new house; in a period when men received the titles and women were practically anonymous, she was called "Madame Plaisted".
Mary Magdalen Hilton, daughter of Mainwaring Hilton and his wife Mary, daughter of Thomas Moulton, was another York woman who experienced the horrors of Indian warfare. As the wife of Nathaniel Adams, she saw her husband killed and her home destroyed during the Massacre, and was marched off to Canada as a captive. Redeemed in 1695, she returned to York and later married Elias Weare, son of Peter. In 1707, as she was returning from church with her husband and small son and also her brother, Joshua Hilton, the party was attacked at the northerly end of Long Sands, where Cape Neck begins, by forty or fifty Indians who had come ashore from canoes. Elias Weare was killed and Joshua Hilton was carried off into captivity, never to be heard of again. In 1709 she married John Webber, son of Samuel.
All the Weares now living in York are among her descend- ants, as are also the descendants of Moses Banks (son of John, and grandson of Richard) and of Alexander McIntire (son of Micum, and grandson of the first Micum), husbands of two of her daughters, and of Samuel Webber 3rd, whose daughter Mary married her son, Joseph Weare.
Mrs. Sarah (Masterson) Bragdon, wife of the Arthur Bragdon who appears most likely to have been the young hunter who discovered the snowshoes piled against Snowshoe Rock, was another woman who had more than one experience with maraud-
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ing Indians. She was probably living in the home of her parents, Nathaniel and Elizabeth Masterson, on Cider Hill about where the gravel pit is now, when they were killed and their house burned. She, with her young daughter Abial, was captured and marched to Canada and not redeemed and returned to York until nearly ten years later. Only three years after their return, it was Arthur Bragdon's fate again to come home to find that Indians had attacked. This time he found his wife Sarah and two of his children killed by tomahawk; and his eldest daughter Abial was again carried off into captivity.
Arthur Bragdon 3rd became a noted Indian fighter, and as a captain led a company in the first raid on Norridgewock in the Fourth Indian War. Later he moved to Scarboro with a new wife and family. His descendants have been notable and promi- nent eastward of York ever since.
Those who had escaped death in the Massacre faced pov- erty and despair. Captain Job Alcock had a hundred to feed and care for in his garrison and Captain Abraham Preble had another hundred in his garrison on Scituate Men's Row. Presumably there were many within the stockade of the Scotland garrison.
Frantically Job Alcock wrote on January 28, 1692:
Honored goufernor: and Councell gentellmen youre selfes being the fathers of this Commonwellth I cold dou no les then to give you an a Compt of that which I have bin a Eie wetness tou and that does moste afext the harte and the remnants that is left in a perishin Condition .... there has not bin a bouf 7 or 8 of ous that have borne the booden and we have not had any theng from the Contry that nou it is time to yous all menes that may be to get of [f] tho I Kannot se any way they Kan get of [f] without youre oneres Send some fesselles for that end: I intend to stay till I here from youre oneres and no longer I shall leve it to youre oneres Consederation the Kas being so dangerous as it is. . . .
The same day the commander at Kittery Point wrote: the dreadfull spoyle at Yorke have put such feares into the hearts of those few that are yet remayninge to remove hens nothing will possibly stay them; except speedy releif be sent from yor honrs which I begg your honrs to hasten if not it will certaynly be to late . . . ".
Their livestock killed-if not by Indians, then by their own hands to provide food for the soldiers on guard duty-no corn available, and clothing inadequate against the winter's cold-this was York's lowest ebb.
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But somehow they withstood the winter; they did not abandon York. Town officials in the desperate years of this war received scant notice in the records; the governing of the town and the supplying of the inhabitants were in the hands of the military under the supervision of Massachusetts. Collections tak- en in the churches of Massachusetts for the relief of the destitute in Maine were received and distributed by Justice Sewall where the need was most urgent. The General Court appealed for sub- scriptions for the ransoming of captives in Canada.
Gradually, as the war continued, the men and boys dared to venture forth, their small work parties attended by a greater number who stood guard while the others worked. Yet in April, while fishing outside of Boon Island, Rowland Young was chased and captured by French privateers, as companions in another boat escaped into York and carried the news. Such reports becoming general, an embargo on all use of boats was ordered while a fleet was sent out from Massachusetts Bay in chase of privateers.
On October 23, 1694, the General Court abated the taxes assessed on York, Kittery, and Wells "by reason of the great deso- lations made upon them lying frontier to ye Enemy and the in- habitants there being taken of from their business and constantly upon duty for their defense".
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Peace between England and France was made, by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, but peace in America between the colonists and the Indians was not concluded until late in 1698. York remained on the defensive, ever ready to return to garrisons. But a time for reconstruction and progress was at hand. Reverend Samuel Moody had been sent to York to serve as chaplain to the soldiers and minister to the town. Several of the former leaders had gone-Edward Rishworth had died in 1690, Major John Davis in 1691, and Peter Weare and Richard Banks had been killed in the Massacre; a new generation of Prebles, Banks, Brag- dons, Weares, Donnells, Saywards, and Plaisteds took up where their forefathers had left off.
In February 1696 John Pickering, a successful miller in Portsmouth, by letter to the selectmen, had proposed to build saw and corn mills in York, on condition that he be given not only the sole rights in all the privileges formerly given to Webb, Clark, Rishworth, Ellingham, Gale, and Sayward, but also that
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he be given the right to build his mills on any convenient land and to have two days' work from every man in town; while he, in turn, would agree to maintain a corn mill in operation pro- vided that he might have a monopoly on grinding all the corn raised in York. A committee of the town, empowered by vote in a town meeting held the following month, made a contract with him which gave him the full rights to grinding corn for which he had asked, but restricted his use of land and timber to the lands allowed to the former millers, and made no mention of granting free labor of any citizens. By 1698 the mills were in operation. Probably some of the first green lumber sawed was reserved for the use of the town to build, in 1699, the parsonage for the Reverend Mr. Moody (still standing on Lindsay Road).
By the turn of the century, sites affording sufficient water power were sought on every stream, and mill privileges were con- sidered most valuable for investments. Streams were dammed and ponds created: Cape Neddick Pond (later Chase's ) before 1700; Folly Pond soon after 1700; Scituate Pond about 1720.
In 1699 the General Court ordered the selectmen of every town to lay out such roads as were required to afford passage through their town to the next. The York selectmen described, besides the one from Wells through York to Berwick, one from Stage Neck to the mills below Cider Hill, another which came to be known as Ferry Lane, and another which started at the Old Burying Ground and ran across Meeting House Creek, then, right, over the path to the Christian Shore to Rowland Young's home, close by the river beyond Bass Cove.
In these years craftsmen of all sorts were eagerly sought and to them were offered special privileges and grants of land as inducements to settle in York and ply their trades. John Parsons had been welcomed to York before 1690 because he was a shoe- maker. In 1708 two Sewall brothers came, Samuel to be a cord- wainer, skilled in making not only shoes but also everything made out of leather, and Nicholas to be a tanner. In 1718 came the Bradburys, father Wymond and two sons, Wymond Jr. and John, who were coopers and makers of wooden buckets, firkins, etc. Weavers were much in demand; although many of the plant- ers knew the trade, they needed all of their products to clothe their own large families. About 1720 Deacon Thomas Bragdon of Cider Hill, weaver, built a mill at Cape Neddick Pond where cloth was woven for several decades.
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The name of Joseph Holt, blacksmith, appears in the rec- ords in 1719 when he married Mary (Harmon) Donnell, daugh- ter of John Harmon, and widow of Benjamin Donnell who was killed when his vessel was attacked by Indians in 1707 at Winter Harbor.
At the opening of the eighteenth century, the citizens of York, ambitious and energetic but poor, were gaining courage to build new homes, to restore their herds and flocks, and to start business and industry. Marauding Indians were still roaming the woods, soldiers were still quartered in the town, and garrisons were being prepared against emergencies. But to survivors of the Massacre this was a state of comparative calm. A report on the condition of American forts from Newfoundland to South Caro- lina made in 1700 to be presented to his majesty, the king, in- cludes this statement: "At Wells and York are Villages with little Garrison Houses which require no further consideration".
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