USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 25
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On the 10th of March, 1758, Rogers was ordered to proceed to the neighborhood of Ticonderoga, with a force numbering one hun- dred and eighty,-officers and men. He set out " with no small uneasiness of mind," 1 thinking the number should be four hundred. After a toilsome march of three days, down Lake George-some- times on skates, sometimes on snowshoes-the little band, having on the thirteenth reached a point near the advance guard of Ticon- deroga, was suddenly attacked by a largely outnumbering force of French and Indians. A desperate fight ensued which lasted for an hour and a half in a constant fire, " with the lines, in general, not more than twenty yards asunder."1 During the encounter the rangers " lost eight officers and a hundred privates killed upon the spot; "1 the enemy, one hundred and fifty killed .and the same number wounded-many mortally. Two days later hardly more than fifty of the one hundred and eighty, unwisely sent out by the English officer in command, upon so perilous an errand, returned to Fort Edward.
In the heat of the combat Lieutenant Phillips, who, during the march, had led an advanced guard, was sent with eighteen men to head off a party of two hundred Indians, who were making for rising ground, in order to fall upon the rear of the rangers. The detach- ment gaining the summit, repulsed the enemy " by a well directed fire in which every bullet killed its man."1 But the brave lieutenant finally found himself and his little party " surrounded by three hun- dred Indians."1 At this juncture the main body of the rangers, " after doing all that brave men could do,"1 were beginning to seek safety as best they could. Rogers, with twenty men, ran up the hill towards the spot where Lieutenant Phillips stood enveloped in a cloud of foes. As Rogers drew near, Phillips said to him that he
1 Major Rogers's Journal.
·
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thought "it best to surrender, if the enemy would give good quarter ; otherwise he would fight while he had one man left to fire a gun."1 But the lieutenant could not stand upon the terms of quarter; com- pletely overpowered by numbers, he and his surviving men having been carried off as prisoners, were fastened to trees to be shot, or hewn to pieces. Phillips, however, getting one hand free, took a knife from his pocket, and opening it with the help of his teeth, cut the strings that bound him, and made good his escape.2
Upon the rolls of the New Hampshire regiment, raised in 1758, and put in command of Colonel John Hart of Portsmouth, can be clearly identified three Rumford names.3 One battalion went with the colonel to Louisburg, where were already the companies of rang- ers. The other battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Goffe, joined Abercombie's force,-operating against Crown Point and Ticonder- oga,-with which was also a portion of the ranger corps in command of Major Rogers. Thus Rumford had its men both in the army of New York and in that before Louisburg.
A regiment of one thousand men contributed by New Hampshire for 1759, and commanded by Colonel Zaccheus Lovewell of Dun- stable, contained Rumford soldiers, though from the loss of rolls their names are not known. The regiment at first joined the force of General Amherst, but later was detached to serve under General Johnson in the capture of Fort Niagara, which was accomplished almost simultaneously with Amherst's occupation of the forts on Lake Champlain, upon the withdrawal of the French forces during the last days of September, 1759.
Three companies of rangers belonged to General Wolfe's com- mand, one of which was commanded by William Stark.4 In this com- pany were, probably, Rumford men ; "for soldiers from Rumford " there certainly were in the expedition against Quebec,5 which resulted in the irrevocable passing of that stronghold from French to English hands.
On the day of the decisive battle of Quebec (September 13, 1759) General Amherst, at Crown Point, issued an order to Major Rogers to march with a detachment of rangers to St. Francis village, at the junction of the river of that name with the St. Lawrence. A flag of truce recently sent thither by the English general had been violated, and the perfidy deserved chastisement. Besides, the Indians dwelling there had been, for a hundred years, the terror of the New England frontier, and vengeance seemed permissible. Rogers proceeded at once upon the long, difficult, and dangerous march, mostly through
1 Major Rogers's Journal.
2 Bouton's Concord, 200.
3 See note at close of chapter.
4 Potter's Manchester, 338.
" Bouton's Concord. 189.
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an unbroken wilderness in the enemy's country, and, on the twenty- third day out from Crown Point, came with his one hundred and forty-two men, near the village of St. Francis. An evening recon- naissance found the Indians celebrating a wedding with dancing and general hilarity. It was determined to pounce upon the village, at various points, early the next morning, while the inhabitants were in deep sleep. At half an hour before sunrise of the appointed day the attack was made. The assaulting parties rushed into the dwell- ings, and, making but little use of the musket, slew the warriors, young and old, with hatchet and knife. Almost all, in their heavy sleep, were destroyed upon the spot; the few, taking to canoes, were pursued, and shot or drowned. In accordance with the order of Amherst, "no women or children " were "killed or hurt " in this attack. But when the morning light revealed six hundred scalps, mostly English, dangling from poles over the wigwam doors, and the rangers, infuriated at the ghastly spectacle, fired the hated village, then many women and children, with, probably, some men in hiding, must have perished 1 in the general conflagration. Twenty of the former, however, were held awhile as prisoners, and then all but five children released. "Take your revenge," Amherst had said; the rangers had obeyed. By seven o'clock in the morning of October the 7th, the affair was over.2 Two hundred Indian braves lay slain, and the village of St. Francis was crumbling into ashes. The avenging party had six wounded, and one, a Stockbridge Indian, killed.
Taking with them five rescued English prisoners, with some plunder and provisions, saved from the ashes of the village, the rangers set out upon their homeward return by the Connecticut river ; for to retrace the route by which they had come was deemed impracticable from the risk of meeting the French who were known to have been in pursuit. They marched in a body, eight days toward the sources of the Con- necticut, till reaching the shore of Lake Memphremagog, when their provisions having given out, they were divided into companies, with competent leaders, and with orders to proceed, as best they could, to the mouth of the Ammonoosuc, where General Amherst had, at Rogers's request, ordered supplies to be sent up from Number Four.3 Rogers himself led one of the parties, and reached, with it, on the 15th of November, the Ammonoosuc rendezvous ; but, owing to the stupidity of the purveyor, he found there no provisions. As his wearied and famished party could go no farther without food, Rogers, himself weakened by hunger,-in company with Captain Ogden
1 Potter's Manchester, 333.
2 Despatch of Rogers; see memoir of Robert Rogers in appendix to memoir of General John Stark, 448.
8 Charlestown, N. H.
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and a captive Indian boy, made a marvelous journey down the Con- necticut, on improvised and shaky rafts, and obtained at Number Four the indispensable supply.
Lieutenant Farrington of Andover, with Benjamin Bradley 1 of Rumford, headed another return party. They were "two of the stoutest men of their time."2 In the attack on the village, they had " pushed so violently against the door of the house where the dance had taken place, that the hinges broke, and Bradley fell in head-fore- most among the sleeping Indians."3 But before the inmates could arouse themselves to resistance, they were all despatched by the sturdy rangers. But these were less fortunate in their homeward return. Cold, hungry, exhausted, the party struck the Connecticut in the Upper Coos, which was mistaken for the Lower. Here the party divided, Bradley, starting with four or five others, and saying that " if he was in his full strength, he would be at his father's house in three days," set off upon a course which, from the supposed point, " would have brought him to the Merrimack,"4 but from the real start- ing point must have led far to the northward of that destination. Neither he nor any other one of the party ever reached home; and the only traces of Bradley ever seen were found by hunters in the neighborhood of the White Hills-being bones, and long hair, " tied with a ribbon such as he wore," and silver brooches and wampum lying scattered about.4 The fate of Stephen Hoit of Rumford, who set out from Coos with Bradley, was indicated by clothing, and a snuff-box, marked with his name, found on an island in Lake Win- nepesaukee.4
Lieutenant Phillips led a company directly to Crown Point, with- out the loss of a man, but not without much suffering. On the way, the men partly subsisted on the bark and buds of trees ; chewed the straps of their knapsacks and powder-horns; and some-who were esteemed fortunate-fed on lumps of tallow. They were finally re- duced to such extremity of hunger that they determined to kill and eat a captive boy brought from St. Francis. Fortunately, a muskrat shot, cooked, and distributed among them, quieted their cannibal frenzy.ª
General Amherst, at Crown Point, prepared for the campaign of 1760. He planned to concentrate three forces upon Montreal, by as many routes, and under the leadership, respectively, of himself, de- scending the St. Lawrence by way of Oswego; of Colonel Haviland, going directly from Crown Point, by the Sorelle river; and of Gen- eral Murray, coming up from Quebec. Amherst accordingly set out
1 Grandson of Abraham Bradley, an early settler. 3 Ibid, 193-4.
2 Bouton's Concord, 193.
' Ibid, 194.
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upon his circuitous route. Some days later (August 15th), Colonel Haviland started upon the direct advance into Canada. Of his force was the regiment raised by New Hampshire for the year, and com- manded by Colonel John Goffe. To it also belonged Major Rogers and his six hundred rangers, who had, earlier in the year, been engaged in precursory operations in Canada, and now formed the vanguard. In the indispensable corps, Rumford still had honorable representation. The campaign proved to be one of little fighting, and that was mostly done by the rangers, who, in " a finishing skir- mish, fired the last hostile guns in the conquest of Canada."} By the 8th of September, the three armies of Amherst, Haviland, and Mur- ray were at Montreal, and on that day the city was surrendered, all Canada being included in the capitulation.
In the summer, before starting for Montreal, General Amherst, wishing to send despatches to General Murray, at Quebec, five hun- dred miles away through the wilderness, directed Major Rogers to procure, upon a reward of fifty pounds, four volunteers for the diffi- cult mission. The four were soon found ; being Sergeant Beverly, a recently escaped prisoner of war, John Shute and Joseph Eastman, the two Rumford messmate rangers,-" equally distinguished for their enterprise, hardihood, and trustworthiness,"2-and Luxford Goodwin. Taking General Amherst's despatches, and letters from other officers to friends in Quebec, the messengers proceeded under a convoy to Missisqui bay,-an arm of Lake Champlain,-whence they were to proceed on foot, partially, along the route by St. Francis, which had been taken by the rangers, the year before.3 After leaving the bay, their course lay for many days through " marshy grounds where they could scarcely find a dry spot to encamp upon at night till they struck the St. Francis river" just above a rapid. Determining to cross as soon as possible, they con- structed two rafts of driftwood, "in order that two of the party might first cross, and, if they found no cause of alarm, might notify the others to follow with the letters. By casting lots, it fell upon Shute and Eastman to cross first; who immediately pushed off ;" but having only " poles with which to work the raft," and "the current proving stronger than they expected," they were carried down stream to the head of the falls, where they narrowly "saved themselves by leaping upon a rock, against the point of which their raft struck." Their guns, knapsacks, ammunition, and provisions were also saved. Finding no enemy in the way, "they called to the
1 Memoirs of Robert Rogers in appendix to Memoir of General John Stark.
2 Bouton's Concord, 196.
3 The record of the difficult, perilous trip is the substance of an account given by Mr. Shute in his old age, but " with memory and faculties unimpaired." See Bouton's Concord, 196-7-8; also Annals of Concord, 65 (note).
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others to come over," but to do so "higher up the stream." The caution not being duly heeded, the second "raft was suffered to enter the current, where it soon became unmanageable." The two men upon it, "finding that they must go over the falls, threw down their poles " in despair. "Shute and Eastman told them to throw off their clothes and sit down." This they did, and the raft went down the rapids, " nearly an eighth of a mile in extent." Their companions, who, from a tree, had anxiously watched them, as they alternately appeared and disappeared in their descent, "ran to the foot of the fall," where Beverly was found "climbing up the bank," and "Goodwin, clinging to a press of driftwood," was extricated. The two men had escaped alive, but " had lost their arnis, clothing, and provisions, together with all the letters." Shute and Eastman could and did divide clothing and some other supplies with their less fortunate comrades. But the letters were lost-and, without them, should they go forward, or go back ? If they went forward, and fell "into the enemy's hands without their papers, they would be in danger of being hanged as spies; if they went back, Rogers would call them cowards and traitors, who had made up a false and improb- able account to excuse their imbecility." Considering the alterna- tives, they concluded to go forward, preferring " to take their chance of the cruelty of the enemy " to meeting " the reproaches of Rogers."
They pursued their journey for weary days through trackless woods and tangled swamps, where only enemies dwelt; venturing to approach the habitations of men only when impelled by hunger- though while satisfying this, they would, now and then, make booty of a silk dress, or something else that pleased their fancy. The Sunday bell of a Catholic chapel calling the inhabitants to worship was to the famished rangers an invitation to supply their wants from houses temporarily vacated by the worshipers. A calf, taken at night from the premises of the sleeping owner, on one occasion, gave the messengers each a quarter of veal; a part of which, when cooked in the woods, four miles away, afforded a refreshing meal ; and the remainder, dried in smoke, became a store for future use, as they trudged on in moccasins made of the skin.
At last they were nearing their tedious journey's end. Ascend- ing a high hill, " they saw for the first time the river St. Lawrence, and a large encampment of regular troops upon the bank, about twenty miles above Quebec." The wary rangers could not deter- mine whether the troops were French or English, but Sergeant Beverly ventured to go and ascertain. The kind greeting accorded him was witnessed by his companions from afar, and soon all were in the camp of their English friends. They were taken by boat to
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General Murray's headquarters in Quebec, where they arrived at midnight, and slept on the floor of the general's kitchen till morning. Then, " conducted into a large hall, lined with mirrors, and in which were about one hundred officers, each received a glass of liquor such as he had never tasted before," and of which Mr. Shute said sixty years later, "I have never drunk anything so good in my life." They were separately examined, and, "as they had previously agreed upon a statement of facts, coincided very well." At the request of General Murray, they remained with him till his advance upon Montreal; and having gone along with his army thither they rejoined their corps and witnessed the surrender of the city.
The conquest of Canada, which, in 1760, ended the French and Indian War in America, gave the New England frontiers immediate security from northern incursion; though definite peace between France and England came not until 1763, when the "Seven Years' War," in Europe, closed in the Treaty of Paris. The dwellers in Rumford shared the general security ; and so far were free to pur- sue the ways that tend to the prosperity and happiness of a com- munity. But they were still embarrassed by the persistent claims of the Bow intrusion and their long deprivation of town privileges. As mentioned in the preceding chapter, the latter fact involved them in a contest with the provincial government in the matter of taxes. These, as long as the people were denied the corporate privilege of a town, could not be collected, and hence were left as troublesome arrears. In vain, for fifteen years, had the people of Rumford, in repeated petition, prayed the legislative authorities to relieve them, by an act of incorporation, of this inability not only to meet pro- vincial requisitions, but also their own municipal charges requiring corporate action. The influence of the Bow intruders hindered compliance with the just and reasonable request. On the 12th of April, 1764,-two years after the royal decision of the second test case in the Bow controversy,-the inhabitants of Rumford, by their minister, presented another petition. In this Mr. Walker set forth: " That the affairs of the said inhabitants-so far as relates to town matters-have been in great confusion ever since the year 1749, for want of the power which they had till then enjoyed since the year 1741, by the District Act; that although it has been pretended that they might still have enjoyed the same privileges,-as inhabitants of Bow,-yet they never understood matters in that light. And for this their opinion and practice consequential thereupon, they humbly conceived they could give reasons which would be satisfactory to this court, were they permitted ; that by 1760, they were so heartily tired of such an unsettled state, that they would have been glad to
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act even under the incorporation of Bow, if they could-although highly inconvenient for them, as it blended part of three towns, whose interests had always been separate, and would consequently be apt to create strife and contention; that the said inhabitants con- ceive themselves greatly aggrieved by a late act of this government, imposing a heavy tax on the inhabitants of Bow, as arrears, et cetera,- a tax which nobody had power to assess and collect at the time when the said arrearages became due, and which, if now done, must be laid in many instances on wrong persons; that what they had suffered for want of the powers they had enjoyed by the first men- tioned District Act, was unspeakably more to their damage than to have paid their proportion of the Province expense ; that the inca- pacity, complained of all along, still continues, and yet the people are subjected to pay their part of the current charge, but nobody has the power to assess or collect it .- They, therefore, most humbly pray that your Excellency and Honors will take the matters complained of under consideration, and either revive the said District Act, so far as relates to Rumford, or-which would be much more satis- factory to the said inhabitants-incorporate them by a standing act, and by their former known boundaries, that the said inhabitants, may be abated at least one half part of said arrearages; and that with respect to their part of the current charge of the Province,1 they may be subjected to pay no more than their just proportion with the other towns in this Province."
A month later, the house of representatives, still insisting upon the policy of compelling the people of Rumford to merge their cor- porate identity, received from Massachusetts in that of Bow, ungra- ciously replied to Mr. Walker's petition, in terms substantially these : That the inhabitants of Bow, except those polled off to Pembroke and New Hopkinton, must pay the taxes, including all arrears, according to the act of 1763; that they must meet in town-meeting in Bow, " some time in June next, to choose all necessary officers for assessing and collecting the annual Province tax, and to transact all other town affairs ; and afterwards" to meet "some time in the month of March annually until further orders of the General Assem- bly ; " and that, upon these conditions, the petitioner " have liberty to bring in a bill." 2 Such conditions the people of Rumford could not accept without giving up their long-urged cause, and this they were far from being ready to do. Moreover, the tendency of events was towards the vindication of that cause. Recent settlers in the part of Bow outside the old limits of Rumford, to the southward, were complaining of the exaction of tax arrears and praying for
1 N. H. Prov. Papers, Vol. VII, 33-4. 2 Ibid, 35.
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relief therefrom, while it was becoming more and more apparent that the settlement of unoccupied lands would be seriously impeded if the onerous requisition were enforced. Then, too, the persistent unanimity of Rumford,-with its " upwards of a hundred families" occupying by a tenure of possession not likely to be broken,-in insisting upon separate incorporation, and upon its lack of power, without such organization, to levy and collect taxes, was proving more than a match for the obstinacy of the Bow proprietors who had hitherto prevented legislative compliance with a reasonable request. But, in fine, whatever may have been the reasons, the province authorities, in the course of the year, came to the conclu- sion to remit tax arrears down to 1763, and to let Rumford have town privileges ; not expressly, however, as a town, but as a parish of Bow. For, on the 7th of June, 1765, was enacted by the coun- cil, and consented to by the governor, a bill, passed by the house, on the 25th of May, and entitled, "An act for setting off a part of the Town of Bow, together with some lands adjoining thereto, with the inhabitants thereon, and making them a Parish ; investing them with such privileges and immunities as Towns in this Province have and do enjoy." The motive for this enactment was stated, in a pre- amble, to be, "That there are sundry arrearages of taxes now due which the inhabitants aforesaid apprehend they cannot levy for want of sufficient authority, and several of them " have prayed "they might be erected into a Town or Parish, and enjoy the common privileges of other towns in this Province." It was enacted that " the inhabitants " with "the polls and estates, on the lands and within the boundary, hereafter described be set off and made a Parish by the name of Concord, and invested and enfranchised with all the powers, privileges, and authorities which any Town in this Province doth by law enjoy, excepting, that, when any of the inhab- itants of the aforesaid Parish shall have occasion to lay out any road through any of the lands that are already laid out and divided by the said Town of Bow, application shall be for the same to the Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the said Prov- ince, as in other cases." The boundary of the Parish was described as follows : " Beginning at the mouth of Contoocook river, so called, which is the southeast corner of Boscawen; from thence south, seventy-three degrees west, by said Boscawen, four miles; from thence running south seventeen degrees east, seven miles and one hundred rods; from thence running north seventy-three degrees east, about four miles, to Merrimack river; then crossing the said river, and still continuing the same course to Soucook river; then begin- ning again at the mouth of Contoocook river aforesaid, from thence
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running north seventy-three degrees east, six hundred and six rods from the easterly bank of Merrimack river, or till it shall come to the southwest line of Canterbury; from thence southeast on said line, two miles and eighty rods; from thence south seventeen degrees east, to Soucook river aforesaid; from thence down the said river till it comes to where the line from Merrimack river strikes Soucook river."
Provision was made for holding the first meeting 1 " for the choice of town officers, on the third Tuesday of August," 1765, and "the annual meeting, for the future, on the first Tuesday of March." It was also enacted that the selectmen of Concord, chosen at the first town-meeting, and at subsequent annual meetings "until a new proportion " of the province tax be made, should join with John Noyes and Edward Russell, of Bow proper-or the part of Bow left after setting off the new parish-in assessing upon the inhabitants both of Concord and of Bow proper, the current province taxes, as well as the arrears thereof for the years 1763 and 1764.2
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