USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Keene > History of the town of Keene, from 1732, when the township was granted by Massachusetts, to 1874, when it became a city > Part 12
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Josiah Willard Benja Bellows Isaac Parker
"In Council Jan'y 2d 1756 read & recommend & Sent Down to the Honble ye Assembly
Theodore Atkinson Secry" (State Papers, vol. 18, page 434.)
Apparently no action was taken upon this petition. On the 7th of June the Indians again appeared at Win- chester and captured Josiah Foster, his wife and two chil- dren. On the 18th they visited Charlestown and killed Lieut. Moses Willard and wounded his son. They also ap- peared at Hinsdale, and were discovered in ambush by Zeb- ulon Stebbins and Reuben Wright, who gave the alarm and prevented the capture of several persons for whom they were lying in wait. Wright was wounded, but both he and Stebbins escaped.
During the winter of 1756-7, a company of rangers, numbering fifty-five men, under Capt. John Burk, was
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stationed at Hinsdell's fort by the authorities of Massa- chusetts. No incursions were made until the 20th of April, when about seventy French and Indians came to No. 4, captured Dea. Thomas Adams, David Farnsworth, Samson Colefax, Thomas Robbins, and Asa Spofford and took them to Canada. Only Farnsworth and Robbins returned.
Early in March of this year another regiment of 500 men was raised by New Hampshire to continue outside operations against the French. Men from the neighboring towns joined this regiment, but none from Keene, so far as appears. One battalion under Lt. Col. John Goffe, of Bedford, had its rendezvous at No. 4; but it arrived too late to prevent the outrage committed there on the 20th of April, and after halting a few days at that post marched to Albany and thence to Fort William Henry. This force was replaced at No. 4 by a regiment of 500 men from Connecticut under Col. Whiting. These troops were active and ranged the woods as far as Lake Cham- plain.
Lord Loudon, now commander-in-chief of the English forces, took command of the expedition to Halifax, leav- ing the cowardly and inefficient Gen. Webb in command before Crown Point, who with 4,000 men lay timidly in his camp, and allowed Montcalm, with a force scarcely su- perior to his own, to capture Fort William Henry, includ- ing the garrison of 2,200 men. After the surrender the In- dian allies of the French, in spite of Montcalm's orders to the contrary, massacred many of the prisoners, including 80 of the New Hampshire battalion of 200 men.
The settlers were seized with consternation and dis- may. Webb was terror-stricken and sent pressing appeals for help, and New Hampshire immediately raised another battalion of 250 under Col. Thomas Tash of Durham. After his success, however, Gen. Montcalm withdrew to Canada, and Col. Tash with his battalion was stationed at No. 4, replacing the Connecticut troops, who marched to Fort Edward.
During these years of the war the annual town meet- ings of Keene had been held on the first Tuesday in March in each year as required by the charter, and at each,
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money had been raised for the Rev. Mr. Carpenter's salary and other expenses. Before the meetinghouse was com- pleted these meetings were held at private houses-that of 1755 at Joseph Ellis's, and that of 1756, at Nathan Blake's. That of 1757 was opened at the fort and adjourned to the house of Joseph Ellis. "Voted to Build a Bridge Over the River at the Place called Dales Ford- way."1 Isaac Clark, Lieut. Ephraim Dorman, Ensign William Smeed, Ebenezer Nims, Nathan Blake and Dea. David Foster were chosen a committee to build the bridge, and "Seventy Pounds New Tenor" were voted to defray the expense.
The annual meeting of 1758 was held "at the House of Ser. Ebenezer Nims in the Fort." "One Hundred and Thirty Pounds New Tenor" were raised for the support of the gospel for the year-showing that one dollar of specie was worth five of the paper currency of that time, his salary being twenty-six pounds, silver money.
Article 7 of the warrant, "To see if they will do any- thing further toward finishing the meetinghouse," was dismissed. The hardships and dangers of the war were so great, the production of crops so restricted, and money so depreciated that real poverty was upon the settlers with all its privations and discouragements. They suffered at times from want of sufficient food and clothing; and, rigidly and devoutly pious as most of them were, they could not spare the money to complete their church edifice.
All the military expeditions of the English in this coun- try in 1757 had failed, and again New Hampshire raised her quota of 800 men for the three planned for 1758. Of those troops one hundred men were detailed for garrison duty at No. 4. During the summer of this year, the In- dians continued their incursions on the frontier towns. "At Hinsdale, they killed Capt. Moore, and his son, took his family, and burned his house."2 At No. 4 they killed Asahel Stebbins, took Mrs. Stebbins and Isaac Parker prisoners, and slaughtered a large number of cattle. The cattle of the frontiersmen, roaming in the woods, often served to furnish provision for the skulking savage. Capt.
1 The first bridge at what are now Faulkner & Colony's mills.
2 Belknap's History of New Hampshire, vol. 2, page 302.
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John Burk with his company of rangers guarded the lower towns in the Connecticut valley. John Hawks was now a major, commanded troops in western Massachusetts and in the campaign against Ticonderoga; and Capt. Isaac Wyman, who afterwards came to Keene, had commanded at Fort Massachusetts in 1755-7, and continued to hold the same position.
The disastrous defeat of Gen. Abercrombie before Ticon- deroga had caused great depression in the hearts of the people, but their hopes revived when Gen. Amherst, soon after his success at Louisburg, arrived at Boston with six veteran regiments and pressed on through the woods to Albany and took command of the army before Ticonder- oga. It was too late for offensive operations that fall, but the confidence of the people was restored, particularly when, in November, Gen. Forbes took Fort Duquesne, and changed its name to Pittsburg, in honor of William Pitt, whose vigorous war policy had brought success to the British arms.
During the winter No. 4 was garrisoned by 100 regu- lar troops from the army, under Capt. Cruikshanks, but the Indians made no incursions.
The spring of 1759 opened with a still more vigorous prosecution of the war. Commanders of high rank who had failed to win victories were superseded by young, ambitious officers of true military ability. Gen. Amherst had replaced the weak and pompous Abercrombie; Gen. James Wolfe, then but thirty-two years old, was sent to operate against Quebec; and Gen. Prideaux was directed to seize the forts at Niagara and then descend the St. Law- rence river and capture Montreal.
Pitt made a personal appeal to Gov. Wentworth for troops and supplies, and New Hampshire responded with a regiment of 1,000 men under Col. Zaccheus Lovewell of Dunstable. The veteran John Goffe was its lieutenant colonel. Other towns in this vicinity sent their quotas, and no doubt Keene furnished its proportion, but nearly all the rolls of that regiment have been lost. Its rendez- vous was at Dunstable, and it marched thence via Wor- cester to Springfield, where it was mustered into the
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British service. From Springfield it marched to Albany and thence to Oswego and Niagara.
Early in May the 100 regular troops were withdrawn from No. 4 to join the army of Gen. Amherst, and were replaced by an equal number of Massachusetts troops sent up from Deerfield under Capt. Elijah Smith.
About the first of August the French dismantled and abandoned the fortresses at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which had been for nearly thirty years their base of oper- ations against the New England settlements, and they were immediately occupied by Gen. Amherst. This ended those raids on our frontiers which had brought such bar- barous atrocities upon our people.
Wolfe and Montcalm met on the plains of Abraham on the 12th of September, and both fell. Quebec was surren- dered to the English on the 18th.
But there was still one other post that had been the rendezvous of those who had committed the most inhuman barbarities on the English settlers. This was the village of the St. Francis Indians at the junction of the St. Francis river with the St. Lawrence. From that point scores of raiding parties had been fitted out, and to that village they had returned with their prisoners, scalps and booty, received their bounties from the French, divided their plun- der, and danced their war-dances while torturing their vic- tims. It was determined to wipe that place out of exist- ence, and chastise its brutal inhabitants.
On the 13th of September, Gen. Amherst despatched Major Rogers with 200 men, most of them his New Hamp- shire rangers, with orders to destroy that village "in such a manner as shall most effectually disgrace and injure the enemy," but to spare women and children.
The story of that perilous expedition is a thrilling one, but is too long for insertion here. No raid of the savages on the white settlers, in any war, was more frightful and bloody, or fell upon the victims with a more complete surprise. Two hundred Indians were slain, twenty women and children taken prisoners, and the village totally des- troyed by fire. Pursued by a superior force, the rangers made a hasty and disastrous retreat. Nearly one-half their
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number died from fatigue, exposure and starvation, or were slain by the infuriated enemy. The remainder reached No. 4 in a starving condition sometime in October.
All the great expeditions planned by Pitt for this year's campaign had been successful. With Forbes at Pittsburg, Johnson at Niagara, Amherst at Crown Point and Ticon- deroga, and Wolfe's army at Quebec, all pushing the enemy to the wall, the Indians had enough to do to aid their allies in defence, and had no time for ravages. Conse- quently the settlements in this region had been left in peace through the season of 1759, although not free from fear of the lurking foe.
Having Ticonderoga and Crown Point in our posses- sion, these settlements were covered by our armies there, and in October, the troops stationed at the several posts on the frontier, except Forts Dummer and No. 4, were withdrawn.
Instead of following up his advantage and pushing forward and seizing Montreal, which he might easily have done, and which would have insured possession of what he had already gained, Gen. Amherst spent the autumn in building fortifications and preparing the country about Lake George for permanent occupation by the English. He detailed Lt. Col. John Hawks, with axemen, and a guard of rangers who were also axemen, under Capt. John Stark, to cut a road through the forest from Crown Point towards No. 4. Starting from Crown Point on the 26th of October, and following the old Indian trail-the same that Hawks had traversed at least twice before, in his exchange of Raimbault for Nathan Blake-they opened the road across the country to Otter creek, and thence up that stream and over the mountains; and before winter set in they had the work completed to within twenty-six miles of No. 4.
In the spring of 1760, New Hampshire raised another regiment of 800 men under the veteran Col. John Goffe. Its rendezvous was at Litchfield, whence it marched through Milford, Peterboro and Keene to No. 4. They found only a bridle path from Merrimac to Keene, but they made it a comfortable road. Before they reached this vicinity, the
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lurking savages, without much other demonstration, had carried off Joseph Willard, his wife and five children from their homestead near No. 4. An infant, Samuel, being bur- densome, they took it aside on the second day out and beat out its brains against a tree. No other outrage was committed, and very few traces of Indians were found.
Col. Goffe with his regiment passed through Keene about the 1st of June. One of his soldiers died here, and one was left sick. From Keene, he marched by the way of Great Meadows to No. 4, where he made his headquar- ters for some time. Throwing his regiment across the Connecticut at Wentworth's ferry, two miles above the fort, he set his men to the work of opening a road to the west to meet the one cut the year before by Lt. Col. Hawks. It cost them forty-four days' time to clear a road over those twenty-six miles, but they performed the work so thoroughly that they transported their ammuni- tion, baggage and supplies to the foot of the Green moun- tains in wagons,1 following up the north bank of Black river through the present towns of Cavendish and Lud- low. From there they used pack horses and horse-bar- rows. They took with them for the army at Crown Point a large drove of cattle which had been collected at No. 4, and reached their destination in time to join the army of Gen. Haviland, then preparing to advance on Montreal. The regiment was present at the reduction of Isle Au Noix, St. Johns, Chambler and Montreal-September 8- which gave the English all Canada and closed the war.
The troops returned home and were discharged in November. Prisoners were released and there was great rejoicing. The capture of the Willard family, in the spring, was the last incursion of the Indians into this county, and the war-whoop of the savage has never since been heard in this part of the country. The Willards were taken to Montreal, but returned after the capitulation of that city.
After fifteen years of almost constant terror from the savages, the country was at peace, and the brave pioneers could cultivate their lands without fear of butchery for themselves or their families. Those fifteen years had
1 Belknap's History of New Hampshire, vol. 2, page 305, note.
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completely roused the military spirit of the people, had trained them all in the arts of war, had made veteran sol- diers of all the able bodied men in the country, and pre- pared them for the Revolutionary struggle which was to come fifteen years later.
No other province had furnished so many men for this war in proportion to the number of inhabitants as New Hampshire. None had been more prompt to fill its quotas, and none had furnished hardier, more skillful, or more effec- tive antagonists of the wily savage. Five thousand men had been sent into the armies by this small province of only about 40,000 inhabitants, and great had been the losses and the sufferings of the people.
Of the ten regiments of militia in New Hampshire at this time, the 6th covered all this part of the province and was commanded by Col. Josiah Willard, with Benjamin Bellows of Walpole lieutenant colonel; and Col. Willard 1 continued in command until 1775.
The annual town meeting in 1759, held "at the house of Ensign William Smeed in the fort," again voted to dis- miss the article relating to finishing the meetinghouse, but the salary of the minister was raised as usual.
No records of proprietors' meetings are found after that of Dec. 24, 1754, until 1759. On the 29th of May in that year "A legal meeting of the proprietors" was held at the house of Joseph Ellis, David Nims, moderator. Dea. David Foster was then proprietors' clerk.
"Voted upon the Tenth article to Grant to Messieurs David Belden Joshua Graves & Elisha Scott and Abner Graves the Liberty to turn the waters of the Stream known by the Name of the East Branch in the most Convenient Place for the use of a Saw-Mill and Corn-Mill and Shall have the Liberty and Priviledge of Said Stream so much as to Sup- port sd Mills so long and upon these Conditions Hereafter Named viz That they will in the Space of two years Time Build and fit a good Saw Mill and Corn Mill and that the Inhabitants and Residents of the Town of Keene Shall have as good Priviledge both in Sawing and Grinding as the In- habitants of Swanzey Passible Loggs to be Saw'd for the value of the one half of the Boards from Time to Time and
1 The adjutant general's reports put Col. Willard down as of Keene, but he lived at Winchester. His son, Capt. Josiah Willard, came here to live about 1762.
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at all Times and when the above Said Gentlemen Shall Cease or Neglect to keep Mills there in good Repair to an- swer the Necessity of this Township for Sawing and Grind- ing then sd Priviledge to Return to this Propriety again."
This was the time when the waters of the East branch were turned from their natural channel below South Keene and diverted to the South branch, and the water power at Swanzey Factory was created.
On the 28th of August, a town meeting was held for the first time in the new meetinghouse, Capt. Michael Metcalf, moderator-the meetinghouse having been so far finished as to be used for that purpose-but on the 30th of January following a town meeting was held at the house of Joseph Ellis, which voted to raise ten pounds sterling money towards finishing the meetinghouse, and Gideon Ellis, Ebenezer Nims and Eleazar Sanger were chosen a committee to go on with that work.
The annual meeting of 1760, chose Dea. David Foster, town clerk. David Nims had held that position since the organization of the town.
On article third: "Voted that Eaighty Seven Spanish Mild Dollars be asses'd on Pools and Rateable Estates in this Town for the Support of the Gospel in this Place for the Present year." It was also voted to build a pound, thirty-six feet square, in front of house lots No. 28 and 29-the two lots next south of the present railroad, on the west side of Main street.
On the 29th of July, the town "Voted Not to Joyn with the People of Swanzey in Maintaining and Carrying on the worship and Ordinances of God," and that connec- tion ceased.
Another meeting, on the 25th of September, Capt. Michael Metcalf, moderator: "Voted to hire a Suitable Person to Preach the Gospel in this Town for the space of Two Months"-and chose Lieut. Seth Heaton, Ebenezer Clark and Dr. Obadiah Blake a committee for that purpose.
The road along the eastern base of West mountain was laid out this year by the selectmen.
CHAPTER V. HABITS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INDIANS.
When the white settlers first came to this region they found many of the intervale lands along the Connecticut river and its branches denuded of trees and showing un- mistakable signs of having been cultivated. All the New England tribes of Indians cultivated the land more or less, and in this respect were superior to those in some other parts of the country. They killed the trees on those inter- vale lands with fire, or by girdling, planted their corn, cul- tivated and gathered their crop, and sometimes preserved it on the ear in excavations made in dry places in the ground and covered with poles and bark.
Upon the arrival of the Pilgrims on these shores one of their first discoveries was that of corn, or maize, which had been raised by the Indians and preserved in this way; and when they landed they found cornfields, the crop gath- ered but the stalks still standing.
The Indians raised corn on the meadows of the Con- necticut river and its branches, and sometimes sold to the whites.
"The spring of 1637 was so occupied by the English settlers at Windsor, Hartford and Weathersfield in prepar- ing for and carrying on the war with the Pequots, that they failed to plant the requisite amount of corn and wheat. The following winter proving unusually long and severe, their provisions were wholly exhausted. On the first opening of spring (1638), a deputation was sent up to Agawam, where they failed to get supplies, and then up the river to Pocumtuck (Deerfield), where they found plenty of corn, and purchased enough of the Indians to load a fleet of fifty canoes, which were taken down the river by the natives, and the corn delivered at the towns designated." (Temple & Sheldon.)
To the Indians we are also indebted for the squash, which grew luxuriantly on the rich soils of these valleys; and for the Seivia bean and some other vegetables. They
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had kettles of soapstone in which they boiled vegetables, and they lived on these and on their corn, berries, nuts and roots; and on fish and game, which they cooked on hot coals, or held in the fire on sticks, and sometimes ate raw. Fish and meat were sometimes preserved by drying and smoking. They parched their corn, and sometimes ground it between stones, and made "samp" and other mixtures with the meal, but "used no salt, spice or bread."
Chestnut groves were carefully preserved from fires, and furnished a valuable addition to their diet. Their supply of food was always precarious. Sometimes they would be without for days; and then, when an abund- ance was obtained, they would gorge themselves, and imitate voracious animals by sleeping it off. They had no beggars or children unprovided for; and no domestic animals except dogs, and but few of those.
Water was their only drink, and intoxication was unknown to them until the whites sold them liquor and made demons of them with their "fire-water." But they raised tobacco, and were inveterate smokers, using pipes which they made of soapstone, brierwood and other materials with considerable skill.
Their tools were made of sharp, hard stones, fastened with rawhide on wooden handles, and their spears and arrows were pointed in the same way-with flint, quartz or jasper. They cultivated the land with wooden mat- tocks, and sometimes with sharp bones fastened on sticks, and they were skilled in the manufacture of birch bark canoes, baskets, snowshoes, and many other articles, and in tanning the skins of animals with the hair on, with which they clothed themselves in winter.
For sewing they used the sinews of the deer and other animals, and the fibre of wild hemp, dogbane, and the inner bark of the "basswood" and other kinds of trees, with thorns, fishbones, or sharp sticks in place of needles or awls. They caught fish in nets made of those fibres; and by hold- ing a torch over the water at night, when the curiosity of the larger fish would bring them to the surface to be struck by the Indian's spear.
Their skill in hunting was marvelous, taught by that
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most importunate of teachers, necessity. One of their con- trivances was to bend a sapling to the ground, and with thongs and deftly laid cords to form a trap for catching deer and other animals. Seth Fields of Northfield had his old mare caught in such a snare, and a friendly Indian came running to tell him that his "squaw horse" was caught in a "yank-up."
Their weapons were bows and arrows, spears and tom- ahawks-small stone axes. Later, these last were replaced by hatchets bought of the whites.
Their fortifications were stockades, in some cases very firm and strong, and covering many acres of ground. On the left bank of the Ashuelot river, just below the south line of Keene, at the "sand bank " near Sawyer's Crossing. there are evidences that there was once an Indian village, or at least a large and somewhat permanent encampment, inclosed with one of these stockades. It covered several acres of ground, and the irregular outlines of a fortifica- tion are still to be seen; but they will soon be obliterated by the constantly drifting sand. The quantities of chip- pings and fragments of flint and quartz that have been found there make it evident that arrow and spear heads and other implements were manufactured there in large numbers from those hard stones, brought from a distance. Among the relics found there by George A. Wheelock, Hiram Blake, F. G. Pratt, and others, which have been preserved by the people of Swanzey, are specimens of Indian pottery; ten arrow heads of flint and quartz; three of another kind of hard stone, fragments of which are scattered about there; a well finished stone-chisel six inches long; a gouge three and one-half inches long; a stone pestle fourteen and one-half inches long of a hard grey stone; and many other specimens of Indian manufacture. Some of these are preserved in the Keene natural history rooms.
Mr. Blake says: "The sand bank, so called, is evidently the site of an Indian village, and bears strong evidence of having been fortified. A dark line of earth mixed with ashes and charcoal extends nearly around an enclosure of several acres. This may have been the line of palisades or
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row of stakes stuck in the ground for the purpose of defence. The sand has drifted so much, of late years, that the line is very indistinct or nearly gone. Old residents of the locality state that when they were boys Indian relics were readily picked up on the spot; but few of them were preserved. The large quantity of chippings now found there, as well as occasional pieces of pottery, indicate that these implements of war and domestic economy were made on the spot, and that for a time it was a permanent stopping place for the Indians."
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