USA > New Hampshire > Gathered sketches from the early history of New Hampshire and Vermont, containing vivid and interesting account of a great variety of the adventures of our forefathers, and of other incidents of olden times > Part 1
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Gc 974.2 C38g 1492475
M.L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01085 8436
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/gatheredsketches00chas 1
OSsLe
GATHERED SKETCHES
FROM
THE EARLY HISTORY
OF
NEW HAMPSHIRE AND VERMONT
CONTAINING
+1
VIVID AND INTERESTING ACCOUNTS OF A GREAT VARIETY
OF THE
ADVENTURES OF OUR FOREFATHERS,
And of other Untideuts of Olden Time.
ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
EDITED BY
FRANCIS CHASE, M. A.
CLAREMONT, N. H. : TRACY. KENNEY & CO. 1856,
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1856, by TRACY, KENNEY & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of New Hampshire.
STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
1492475
PREFACE.
GENTLE reader, you have before you a collection of Sketches, gathered from the early history of New Hampshire and Vermont; or, perhaps we ought to say, a selection, for the first period of the existence of these two states is a deep and copious mine, from which the diligent student may exhume any number of incidents, which it would be well worth while, both as a matter of curiosity and of information, to place before the reading public.
In this selection you will find incidents both grave and gay, both pathetic and amusing ; some of them of considerable histori- cal importance, and others which some persons might think almost trifling. But it is intended that the following pages shall illustrate as fully as possible the character of the times in which our ances- tors lived. Their life, as is ours, was made up of trifles and weightier things combined, and the best illustration is that in which minor matters have their due proportion. We hope they will not be found too numerous in this attempt.
The Editor takes no credit to himself for his portion of the work. His work has been, for the most part, merely to select and arrange, adding here and there a note or a prefatory remark to clear up the meaning of the text, or to give additional information. Such articles as have been taken from connected histories have of course been altered to make them clear and intelligible when standing by themselves. Matters not connected with the main point of the story have been pruned out, and in some cases eluci- dating sentences have been put in ; occasionally too, an inelegant
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4
PREFACE.
expression has been amended. The biographical and a few other articles have been prepared expressly for this work. Some frag- ments have been found in looking over old files of newspapers ; but most of them have been culled from books now out of print, and inaccessible to the majority of readers. Where the origin of an article has been certainly known, it has been duly credited. The Editor takes pleasure in acknowledging his indebtedness to the following excellent works : Williams's History of Vermont, Belknap's History of New Hampshire, Drake's Indian Captivities, Farmer and Moore's Historical Collections of New Hampshire, De Puy's Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Heroes of '76, and Powers's interesting little History of the Coos Country. For the excellent fragment of history entitled " Kilburn's Defence," he is indebted to the faithful pen of Dr. E. Morse, of. Walpole, N. H.
Above all, he would offer his sincerest thanks to those kind. friends, without whose generous assistance he could, in his present circumstances, by no means have performed the labor of preparing the present work. He indulges the hope that their joint labors will be kindly received, and that this humble book may, in the houses of both the lofty and the lowly of New England, be a source of lasting pleasure. To the aged may it bring up pleasant pictures of former days; to the rising generation may it serve as an instruc- tive history of times past, and as an agreeable substitute for the useless works of fiction which are scattered in such profusion throughout the land.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introductory Chapter,
7
The Red Man's Stratagem,
13
Death of Major Waldron, .
18
The Captivity and Sufferings of Miss Sarah Gerish,
21
Three Narratives, .
25
Lovewell's Fight, .
32
The Boar and the Bear,
39
The Captivity of Mrs. Isabella M'Coy, of Epsom, N. H., .
.
46
Peabody's Leap,
54
Kilburn's Defence,
62
Indian Bridge, .
71
The Captivity and Sufferings of Mrs. Jemima Howe,
75
Hilton, of Famous Memory, 91 Indian Fun, 97 The Headless Spectre, 99
.
102
Attack upon Number Four,
The Indians at War; their Usages and Customs,
106
A Witch Story of Olden Time,
. 116
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1
6
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Baker's Retreat, 121
Destruction of the Indian Village of St. Francis,. . 124
Peter Brown's Temperance Lesson, . . 131
Incidents from the Life of Colonel Ethan Allen, . 135
Seizure of Captain Remember Baker by the Yorkers, . 143 .
Female Courage, . . 149
The Battle of Bennington, .
151
Anecdotes from the Life of General Stark, 158
An Act of Courage,
165
The Old Man of the Mountain, 170
The New Hampshire Rangers,
174
The Burning of Royalton, .
181
INCIDENTS.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
No history is more interesting to a nation than the narrative of its own origin and progress. No events are more attractive to young and old than the incidents of varied suffering and prosperity, of romance and of sturdy fact, which cluster around the beginning of their country's existence. The polished writers of Greece and Rome knew this, and because Homer and Virgil sang of these things, their vivid and graceful verses were in the mouths of the lowest as well as the highest of their coun- trymen. Greeks and Romans alike were fain to magnify into gods and heroes the founders of their respective empires. The exploits of Jason, Her- cules, and Romulus were magnified by tradition into superhuman actions ; and their heroic achievements were related in hovel and palace with equal pride and admiration. In this respect, the feelings that actuated ancient nations prevail in the same degree among modern ones. And perhaps there is no
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INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
nation on the face of the earth that has so much patriotic pride in their ancestry as our own. A son of that state whose green and beautiful moun- tains have given it a name, feels his bosom glow as warmly when the name of Ethan Allen is mentioned, as did the Greek when speaking of his Hercules, or the Roman when relating the deeds of Romulus. There is no nation indeed which has more reason to be proud of its founders than our own, and there are no states, within the broad boundaries of our country, whose early history is fraught with incidents so interesting, or so full of exciting ad- venture, as is that of New Hampshire and Vermont. The first settlers of these states were men of strong arms and brave hearts, who came with wives as energetic and fearless as themselves, to hew them out a home from among the dense and tangled for- ests which then covered the land. They were men fitted cither for action or endurance. They were accustomed to the hardships of a frontier life. They understood the ways of the savage tribes which surrounded them, and were most of them more than a match for their wily foe in all the arts and stratagems of Indian warfare. True, they were sometimes overpowered by numbers, or lured by the savages into traps set for their destruction ; but still it seems almost a wonder that they were able to exist, or to stand at all against a numerous and cunning enemy. Their settlements were scattered ; so much so, that frequently one family was located several miles distant from any other. Such a ,
9
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
position was of course exposed at all times to open and secret attacks from a savage foe, and called for the most extreme caution on the part of the adventurous settlers. Each cabin was a castle, that must be defended by the inhabitants to the death. The story of " Kilburn's Defence " will be found to illustrate what has been said on this point.
There seems to be a peculiar propriety in con- necting the early histories of New Hampshire and Vermont. True, New Hampshire was settled by the whites one hundred years before any permanent location had been made by civilized persons within the borders of Vermont ; still, the same tribes of Indians roamed and hunted over the whole territory. The French and Indians of Canada, when they dashed down upon the infant settlements of New Hampshire, took their course over the verdant mountains of Vermont and along the meadows of the Connecticut Valley ; and when they returned, they dragged their unwilling and woe-worn captives through the same forests and across the same green hills. They were connected too, in the eye of the law, by grants from the crown of England ; which made the western boundary of New Hampshire extend to within twenty miles of the Hudson River. The State of New York did indeed set up an op- posing claim to the land west of the Connecticut River ; but the claims of New Hampshire had been first acknowledged by many of the actual settlers, and though New York tried to enforce her authority she could not succeed. For some time previous to
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INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
the revolutionary war quite a fierce strife was car- ried on between the inhabitants of the New Hamp- shire grants and the New York officials, in which the former were assisted and abetted by the author- ities of the state from which they had derived their lands. No apology need therefore be made for uniting in one volume incidents from the early his- tory of these sister states. They were connected in actual fact, and it is well they should be so in whatever resembles an historical account.
A brief sketch of the settlement of New Hamp- shire and Vermont may be useful as a chain to con- nect together the following detached narratives. As early as the year 1623 the English had begun settlements on the Piscataqua River. One David Thompson, with others, erected salt works and es- tablished a fishery at Portsmouth. Edward and William Hilton went eight miles farther up the river, to Dover. Thompson did not remain long in . his location, but it does not appear that the estab- lishment he had made was entirely deserted. The Hiltons of Dover played quite a prominent part in the carly history of this state, and some of their descendants have been quite famous for their brave- ry, prowess, and skill in Indian warfare. It is of one of these that an incident is related in the fol- lowing pages. The early settlers in New Hamp- shire never pretended that they sought a home in the wilderness for the sake of religious liberty. They declared openly that they came to the Piscat- aqua River to fish and to trade, and they hoped to
11
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
secure an abundant compensation for their labor. It was deemed probable that stores of precious metals would be found in the mountainous regions of New Hampshire ; and stories of beautiful lakes and rivers abounding in fish were circulated, and received considerable credence. Having their at- tention turned at first to such objects, they neglect- ed agriculture ; and the growth of the settlements was consequently slow for a number of years. A number of townships were afterwards granted by Massachusetts, within the borders of New Hamp- shire, but were afterwards given up to the latter state. Among these were Hopkinton, Charlestown, Hinsdale, &c. Epsom, N. H., was chartered in 1727, and settled from the neighborhood of Dover. Hence Mrs. Isabella M'Coy was carried captive in 1747. Hollis was settled in 1731 by Captain Peter Powers. The interesting story of "the Boar and the Bear " is related of him.
In Vermont, the first settlement was made by the whites in 1724. The government of Massachusetts in that year erected Fort Dummer, near what is now Brattleboro'. Soon after, Startwell's and Bridgeman's forts were built a little below, in the present town of Vernon, Vt. It was at the latter that the tragical event occurred which is described in the narrative of the captivity of Mrs. Howe. These forts were formerly included in the township of Hinsdale, New Hampshire, but were given up to Vermont when the two states separated. After the establishment of Fort Dummer, the settlement of
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INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
the Connecticut valley went on rapidly. The first settlement by the English on the west side of the Green Mountains was made at Bennington in 1761, although a charter had been granted for the town in 1749 by Benning Wentworth, governor of New Hampshire. The French had located themselves on the banks of Lake Champlain, opposite to Crown Point, but evacuated both places when General Amherst captured Ticonderoga in 1759. The Abenâqui or St. Francis tribe of Indians were the greatest and most powerful enemies the English had among the denizens of the forest. These were scat- tered all along the northern part of New Hamp- shire and Vermont, and throughout Maine. This was the tribe that espoused most strongly the cause of the French in their wars against the colonists. From first to last, they were the cause of a vast deal of bloodshed and misery to our ancestors. A portion of the tribe is still existing in Canada ; but while the descendants of the English have con- stantly gone forward in wealth and prosperity, and in all the arts of civilization and refinement, these down-trodden sons of the wilderness have sunk lower and lower, until they are hardly the shadows even of what they once were. While we drop the tear of pity over the sufferings of our fathers, let us not fail generously to commiserate the wretched condition of those who caused these sufferings. Parcete victis.
THE RED MAN'S STRATAGEM.
AN INCIDENT IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF COCHECO.
1666.
THE early settlers of Cocheco were exposed at all times to the relentless hostility of the Indians. No precautions could circumvent their stratagems. They came at all times and in all seasons, with the tomahawk in one hand and the torch in the other, to massacre and destroy. The traveller was cut down on his journey, the husbandman was butchered in his field, the women and children were assaulted at the fireside, and consigned to an ignominious death, or a captivity worse than death.
In the summer of 1666, a band of savages made a descent upon the infant settlement. Their approach having, on this occasion, been observed, time was afforded for such of the inhabitants as could not do good service at bush fighting, to retreat to the block- houses or garrisons. The women and children were hurriedly gathered within the palisades of their defences, while the rifle of the husband and father for a moment checked the advances of the enemy. There were at this time some half a dozen of these block-houses at Cocheco, all of which, with one
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THE RED MAN'S STRATAGEM.
exception, were successfully defended against this assault of the savages. The manner in which this one was captured shows at once the wily character of the enemy against which our fathers had to guard their possessions and their lives, and the persever- ance with which that enemy labored to effect their machinations.
The Indians, having been repulsed in their first onset upon the settlement, retired, carrying with them the bodies of several of their warriors, who had been shot down in the fight. Two or three of the white men had also been killed. Their bodies were also dragged off, and, having been scalped and otherwise horribly mutilated, were left as a prey to the beasts of the field ; while the remains of the Indian braves who had fallen were interred with all the forms and ceremonies of their race. The in- habitants of Cocheco were congratulating them- selves upon their successful escape from the enemy. Some of their little band, it was true, had fallen - some, too, whom they could but illy spare. Their voices hereafter would be missed in the council, and their arms in the fight. But such things were of common occurrence, and the cares of a precarious existence left little time for mourning to the living.
The Indians, though repulsed, had not abandoned their designs upon Cocheco. They retired only to devise new, and, as they hoped, more successful stratagems for surprising the white man. For sev- eral days the watchfulness of the inhabitants cir- cumvented all their machinations, during which they
15
THE RED MAN'S STRATAGEM.
did not deem it prudent to show their copper-col- ored visages within the range or reach of a rifle shot from the block-houses.
On the fourth day after the first attack they dis- covered that one of the block-houses, which was built on the margin of the river, could be entered on the water side, provided any means could be de- vised to reach it unobserved. To proceed to it openly in their canoes, and make the attempt, either by day or night, was out of the question, as the inhabitants kept a strict lookout, and would have bored a bullet hole through the head of the first Indian that came within their reach. In this block- house were four men, with their families, in all about twenty. The Indians, having discovered an open- ing to the garrison, were not long in devising a way to enter it.
About half a mile above the settlement was a mowing field, the grass of which had been cut and made into cocks by some of the Cocheco men, the day before the descent of the Indians upon them. It was ready for the barn, and as soon as the Indians should retire, it was the intention of the owners to cart it in. Early in the morning of the fourth day, however, they discovered that the enemy, having exhausted every other means of annoying them, were about to commence an assault with and under cover of the hay. Having procured a cart belong- ing to the settlement, which they had found within their reach, they placed a large quantity of the hay upon it, and having dragged it within a short
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THE RED MAN'S STRATAGEM.
distance of the garrison, set it on fire, and, under cover of the burning mass, attempted to back it up to and burn with it the garrison.
Previous to this, however, they had, as it seemed, in mere wantonness, set some fifteen or twenty cocks of the hay adrift in the river, which were floating slowly down towards the garrison. The besieged had observed this movement, but, suspecting noth- ing, directed their attention exclusively to the dan- ger which was pressing upon them on the other side of the garrison. The cart, with its contents in a mass of flames, was coming down upon them. The men of the garrison stationed themselves at the loop- holes, with their guns, to pick off as many of the enemy, as they approached, as they could reach ; while the women and children brought up water from the river, which they obtained through the door which the Indians had previously discovered, to extinguish the flames.
The burning hay had reached the garrison, and was sending its lurid flames far above the walls ; yet, as the house was built of unhewn logs, massive and strong, the fire made but little impression upon it. More than one Indian who had assisted in push- ing down the cart had paid for his temerity with his life; the muskets of the besieged kept them at bay, or cut them down, as they exposed themselves ; and the fire from the hay would have been extin- guished, and the garrison successfully defended, had it not been carried in another quarter.
While the inmates of the garrison were thus de-
17
THE RED MAN'S STRATAGEM.
fending themselves from the attack on the land side, the hay in the river had floated down opposite the garrison, having gradually drawn towards the shore as it approached ; and as the besieged, having driven the Indians from the cover of the burning hay, were employed in extinguishing it, a dozen savages sprang upon them, as it were, from the bosom of the river, entering the garrison from the water side. Each hay cock had concealed the head of an Indian, as he swam down the river beneath it!
The inmates of the garrison who escaped the tomahawk, with the exception of some half a dozen who succeeded in reaching one of the neighboring houses, were carried off as captives into Canada. Some of the more feeble died on the journey, and were left by the wayside ; others lived to return, after years of hardship and suffering, to their friends.
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DEATH OF MAJOR WALDRON.
DOVER, N. H., JUNE 27, 1689.
IN August, 1676, King Philip was slain. Some of his followers took refuge among the Penacooks, others with the eastern Indians - the Ossipees and Pequawketts. Hostilities were renewed through the influence of these refugees, and at length two com- panics of soldiers were sent from Boston to Dover. Here they found a large number of Indians at the house of Major Waldron, whom they regarded as their friend and father. The Boston companies had orders to seize all Indians who had been engaged in King Philip's war, and, recognizing such among the number, would have fallen upon them at once had they not been dissuaded by Major Waldron, who proposed to have a training and sham fight the next day, in order to take them by stratagem. This having been done, they were all seized and disarmed. A separation was then made ; the Penacooks and those who had made peace the autumn before were set at liberty ; while the refugees -the strange In- dians, as they were called - were retained as pris- oners to the number of two hundred. Seven or eight, who were convicted of having killed Eng-
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DEATH OF MAJOR WALDRON.
lishmen, were executed. The rest were sold into slavery in foreign parts.
"Thirteen years passed since the seizure of the In- dians at Dover ; but they still remembered it, and longed for vengeance. Some of those who had been sold into slavery had returned to excite their brethren, and they soon broke out in hostilities.
On the evening of the 27th of June, 1689, two squaws applied at each of the garrisoned houses in Dover for lodging. The people, fearing no danger, readily admitted them. Mesandowit, one of the chiefs, was entertained at Major Waldron's. “ Broth- er Waldron," said he, with his usual familiarity, while they were at supper, " what would you do if the strange Indians should come ? " " I can assemble a hundred men," was the reply, "by lifting up my finger." With this fatal confidence they retired to rest. When all was quiet, those within opened the gates and gave the signal. The savages rushed in and began their bloody work. Waldron, though eighty years of age, seized his sword and drove the assailants back through two doors, but when returning for his other arms, was stunned with a hatchet, and fell. They then dragged him into his hall, seated him in an elbow chair upon a long table, and insultingly asked, " Who shall judge Indian now ?" After feasting upon provisions which they compelled the rest of the family to procure, each one with a knife cut gashes in Waldron's breast, saying, "I cross out my account !" They then cut off his nose and ears, and forced them into his mouth ; and when, weakened
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DEATH OF MAJOR WALDRON.
from the loss of blood, he was about to fall from the table, his own sword was held under him, which put an end to his tortures. At other houses, similar acts of cruelty were perpetrated, and in the whole, twenty-three persons were killed, and twenty-nine carried prisoners to Canada, who were shortly sold to the French. Many houses were burned, and much property was plundered ; but so expeditious were the Indians, that they had fled beyond reach before the neighboring people could be collected.
THE CAPTIVITY AND SUFFERINGS OF MISS SARAH GERISH,
WHO WAS TAKEN AT THE SACKING OF DOVER, IN 1689, BY THE INDIANS, AS COMMUNICATED TO THE REV. DR. COTTON MATHER BY THE REV. JOHN PIKE, MINISTER OF DOVER.
SARAH GERISH, daughter of Captain John Gerish, of Quochecho, or Cocheco, was a very beautiful and ingenious damsel, about seven years of age, and hap- pened to be lodging at the garrison of Major Wal- dron, her affectionate grandfather, when the Indians brought that horrible destruction upon it, on the night of the 27th of June, 1689. She was always very fearful of the Indians ; but fear, may we think, now surprised her when they fiercely bade her go into a certain chamber and call the people out. She obeyed ; but finding only a little child in bed in the room, she got into the bed with it, and hid herself in the clothes as well as she could.
The fell savages quickly pulled her out, and made her dress for a march, but led her away with no more than one stocking upon her, on a terrible march through the thick woods, and a thousand other miseries, till they came to the Norway Planes .* From thence they made her go to the end of Winni-
* The "Norway Planes " are in the present town of Rochester, N. H.
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THE CAPTIVITY AND SUFFERINGS
piseogee Lake ; thence eastward, through horrid swamps, where sometimes they were obliged to scramble over huge trees fallen by storm or age, for a vast way together, and sometimes they must climb up long, steep, tiresome, and almost inaccessible mountains.
Her first master was an Indian named Sebun- dowit, a dull sort of fellow, and not such a devil as many of them were ; but he sold her to a fellow who was a more harsh and mad sort of a dragon. He carried her away to Canada.
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