USA > New Hampshire > Sketches of the history of New-Hampshire, from its settlement in 1623, to 1833: comprising notices of the memorable events and interesting incidents of a period of two hundred and ten years > Part 11
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Of these two, one was John Stark, afterwards the celebrated Gen. Stark. On their arrival at St. Francis, both ran the gauntlet, which consists in passing between two long files of Indians and receiving from each one a kick or a blow .- "Stark's companion suffered severely ; but he himself snatched a club from the nearest Indian, and laid about him to the right and left as he ran through the lines-greatly to the amusement of the fathers of the tribe." Their efforts to make him work ents in ter set- were unavailing, as he cut up by the roots the corn he was ordered to hoe, declaring that such was the proper work of essiomy squaws, not of warriors. He was a favorite with them ; they dotted adopted him as a son and gave him the title of the Young of new Chief. When, not long after, Capt. Stevens went to Canada to redeem English captives, the first one offered him was a robust young man, dressed in Indian style and decorated with wampum and silver. It was Stark.
An event occurred in 1753 which sharpened the resentments of this hostile tribe. Two of their number, Sabbatis and Plausawa, came into Boscawen and lodged at the house of a man, who on the next day killed them in the woods, and with the aid of another concealed their bodies under a bridge. The two men implicated in the affair were taken to Portsmouth and confined in irons in the prison; but on the night preced- ing the day appointed for their trial, a body of armed men I
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98
. HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1754.
forced the prison doors with crowbars and axes, and set them at liberty. They were never retaken, although the Governor offered a reward for their apprehension. It is but an act of justice to add that some accounts represent Bowen, the man who killed these Indians, as doing it in self defence, having first observed in them indications of hostile feelings, and actually seen one of them snap his gun at him with an evi- dent intent to shoot him. A present, with which at the time they appeared to be satisfied, was made to the tribe, as an atonement for the blood that had been shed. They however nourished secret purposes of revenge. A conference with several tribes being afterwards holden at Portland, the St. Francis tribe, though invited, did not attend; but sent a message, purporting that " the blood was not wiped away."
The apprehensions excited by the hostile temper of the Indians were increased by the unfriendly relations existing between England and France. Possessed of settlements both in Canada and Louisiana, the French aimed at connecting these distant regions by a chain of Forts from the St., Law- rence to the Mississippi, and thus monopolizing the fur trade of the Continent. The execution of this vast plan involved encroachments on lands claimed by the English Colonies, and engendered disputes between the two nations. Foreseeing that the controversy must be decided by the sword, the En- glish Ministry recommended to the Colonies an Union for mutual protection and defence. To effect this purpose, a Congress of Commissioners from the Colonies from New- Hampshire to Maryland, met at Albany in 1754, and agreed on a plan of union under a Governor General to be appointed by the King. The Commissioners from this Province were Theodore Atkinson, Richard Wibird, Henry Sherburne, and Meshech Weare. By a singular concurrence, the plan agreed on by the Congress was rejected in England as giving too much power to the Colonies, and in America as giving too much power to the King.
After a short interval of peace the country was involved in the second French War. Instigated by French influence the Indians resumed the hatchet, and Salisbury first experienced the sufferings of invasion, having several of its inhabitants slain or carried into captivity. A party of the enemy surprised the family of James Johnson of Charlestown, and led off eight persons as prisoners. The very next day Mrs. Johnson was delivered of a daughter. The Indians had the humanity to make a halt on her account and construct a litter, on which they carried the mother and her daughter, appropriately
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PERIOD VI .- 1741-1763.
1755.]
named Captive, through the vast wilderness surrounding the Green Mountains. Exposed to imminent danger of butchery or captivity, the inhabitants of Charlestown applied to the government of New-Hampshire for a guard of soldiers ; but being repulsed in this application they addressed their earnest supplications to Massachusetts, who granted the desired pro- tection. Having been carried to Canada, Mr. Johnson was permitted to return home on parole, and the government assisted him in procuring funds for the redemption of his family.
Aided by England, the Colonists in 1755 set on foot several expeditions against the French. Those against Fort du Quesne on the Ohio and Fort Niagara, miscarried. A third, directed against Nova Scotia, was successful; our troops took Fort Cumberland, disarmed the hostile inhabitants of the adjacent region, and transported almost two thousand French people out of the country. A fourth expedition, led by Generals Johnson and Lyman, was destined to attack Crown Point. To this body was attached a New-Hampshire Regiment, under Col. Joseph Blanchard of Dunstable, who marched through the wilderness by way of Salisbury on the Merrimac, and Charlestown on the Connecticut, and were posted at Fort Edward; while the main body advanced to Fort George, at the south end of the lake of that name. A formidable French force under the Baron Dieskau soon after arrived at the south end of Lake Champlain, and marched to attack our troops. Johnson sent out a body of Americans and Mohawks, commanded by Col. Williams and the cele- brated Indian Chief Hendricks, to check their advance .- Unhappily this detachment fell into an ambuscade, and some hundreds of the men, together with Williams and Hendricks, were slaughtered. A pond lying on the line of their retreat into Johnson's camp, into which the bodies of the slain were cast, has ever since been called " Bloody Pond." Flushed with this success, Dieskau pressed forward and attacked the English camp, but was repulsed with great slaughter, and himself mortally wounded. A part of his forces on their retreat fell in with a detachment of New-Hampshire and New-York troops coming up from Fort Edward, the former commanded by Capt. Folsom of Exeter, and after the ex- change of several sharp fircs, were again put to flight, leaving in the power of the victors, the baggage of the French .- After these affairs the army was reinforced by a second reg- iment from this Province, under the command of Col. Peter Gilman.
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100
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
11755.
During the summer small parties of Indians repeated their unwelcome visits to Hopkinton, Keene and Charlestown .- At Walpole, a considerable body of them killed two men, and got possession of Col. Bellows' fortified house in his absence. Returning with twenty men, he gallantly fought his way through fifty savages and recovered the house. The Indians having been largely reinforced, attacked the garrison of John Kilburn in the same town. With the aid of three men and two women, Kilburn made good the defence, keeping the women employed in running bullets and loading muskets, while the men discharged them at the enemy. This little band sustained the assault of two hundred savages, for some hours, killed several of the number, and compelled them at the approach of evening to retire. Never was a more gal- lant defence made. The enemy however, continued their efforts at other points, and found an opportunity to strike an- other blow on the unfortunate town of Hinsdale. Three men, returning at evening from their labor to their families at Bridgman's Fort, fell into an ambushment ; one only escaped, while another was killed, and a third drowned in attempting to cross the river. The Indians then hastened to the fort; the unsuspecting inmates, hearing the sound of their foot- steps, and thinking their friends had arrived, gladly unbarred the gate to receive them. In rushed the savages, and seized the unfortunate women and children to the number of four- teen.
One of these unhappy females was Mrs. How, of whom under the appellation of The Fair Captive, Gen. Humphreys has given so glowing a description in his Life of Putnam .- Her adventures were indeed romantic. On her march over the Green Mountains towards Canada, one of her little sons four years old, would occasionally sit down at a halting place on his master's pack, when the inhuman monster would knock him off with the handle of his hatchet, inflicting wounds on his head, the scars of which long remained. As they passed down Lake Champlain in canoes, a tremendous nocturnal thunder storm lashed the waves into fury and threatened them with instant destruction. Dreadful was the rolling of the thunder on the watery expanse. After their arrival at the head quarters of the tribe, Mrs. How experien- ced the sufferings of extreme hunger, and saw the time when she gladly skimmed off and swallowed the fragments float- ing in a pail destined to feed swine. Her babe was taken from her by violence and carried to a distant place. Roving with her captors from place to place, she spent a dreary win-
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101
PERIOD VI .- 1741-1763.
1756.]
ter among the Islands in the northern part of the lake. Once they gave her the false intelligence, merely to afflict her, that one of her children had died a natural death, and another had been killed by a blow of a hatchet ; nor was it till some- time afterwards, that her anguish was removed by the discov- ery that they were both alive. She was at length sold to a Frenchman, and was finally redeemed from a long captivity by the generous interposition of Col. Schuyler of New-York. One of her daughters was carried by the French Governor to France, where she was married, and never revisited her native land.
The first Baptist Church in the Province was gathered this year at Newtown, under the ministry of the Rev. Walter Powers. This denomination of Christians has since become numerous, including at the present day, ninety-one Churches, and five thousand seven hundred and forty-seven communi- cants within the limits of New-Hampshire.
The third great earthquake known in New-England, oc- curred in November, a little before day-break, after a clear and serene night. The shock was heavy, and of considerable duration. Suddenly arousing the people from the peaceful slumbers of the night, it excited great alarm. It threw down the tops of 100 chimneys in Boston, and shook the country from Virginia to Nova Scotia, an extent of a thousand miles.
In 1756, the operations of war languished. A considera- ble body of Colonial troops, among whom was a New-Hamp- shire regiment under Col. Messerve, was collected for anoth- er attempt on Crown Point; but the Earl of Loudon, than whom a more inefficient man was never at the head of an army, having the chief command, nothing effectual was done. The regiment from this Province being distinguished for hardihood and agility in traversing the woods, a select num- ber of its men were formed into three companies of Rang- ers, commanded by Robert Rogers, John Stark, and William Stark, and kept in pay of the king during the war. The Rangers served as guides and couriers, kept the enemy in alarm by false attacks, and reconnoitered hostile posts. Many of them were from Londonderry and the immediate vicinity ; not Irish, as has been incorrectly stated, but of Scottish de- scent. They distinguished themselves in numerous bloody skirmishes with parties of French and Indians, and exhibited much tact in scouring the woods, and procuring intelligence of hostile movements. On the waters and among the islands and mountains of Lake George, they were incessantly in motion. Major Rogers of Londonderry, than whom few
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102
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1757.
partizan warriors have been more celebrated, commanded the whole body. He afterwards published at London an in- teresting Journal of their Military services.
The Indians acted during the season with less than their usual vigor, and with the exception of killing Lieut. Willard at Charlestown, and the capture of a few persons at Winches- ter, did little serious mischief. Of the stratagems of savage warfare and the hair-breadth escapes of the scattered inhabitants of the remoter towns, we have a' specimen in an occurrence which took place at Westmoreland, near this time, though the precise date is unknown. A party of men went up the river to hoe corn on an island, some miles above their habitations ; and having finished their work, passed over to the west bank, on their way homeward. A large dog be- longing to one of the company ran up the steep bank before them, when his angry growls led them to suspect the pres- ence of an enemy lurking in ambush. Immediately they recrossed the river, and by a route on the east side reached home in safety. The dog was the instrument of their pres- ervation. They afterwards learned the fact, that thirty In- dians lay in concealment, ready to fire upon them the moment they should ascend the bank, and come fairly within their reach.
This year is the era of the introduction of printing into the State. Daniel Fowle from Boston, established a press at Portsmouth, and soon issued the first number of the New- Hampshire Gazette, a newspaper which still exists. The first newspaper in Boston began its course more than half a century before. Both Newspaper and Book printing are now executed in the State, especially at Concord, to a large extent.
The hostilities of the two preceding years had been car- ried on without a formal declaration of war against France. Such a declaration was Issued in 1757. - New-Hampshire raised a regiment for the service of the year, of which a part under Lieut. Col. Goffe of Bedford, marched by way of Charlestown, which had been recently distressed by another Indian incursion, to Fort William Henry, on the shore of Lake George; and were there united with other troops, to the number of two thousand. Little did they anticipate the fatal disaster which awaited them soon after their arrival .- The Marquis de Montcalm who had succeeded to the com- mand of the French army, invested the Fort with a power- ful force, and in six days compelled it to surrender, on con- dition that the garrison should be protected and conducted in
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103
PERIOD VI .- 1741-1763.
1758.]
safety to Fort Edward. At the head of a force sufficient to have relieved Fort William Henry, Gen. Webb lay in the mean time at Fort Edward in stupid inactivity. His troops were eager to go to the rescue of their brethren, and solicited the permission of their commander; but Gen. Johnson, the second in command, told them with tears in his eyes, that Webb forbade their march. As the garrison after the surren- der marched out unarmed, the savages in Montcalm's army, enraged at the disappointment of their expectations of plun- der, fell on them with a fury next to infernal. The New- Hampshire troops being in the rear, suffered most, having eighty out of two hundred butchered on the spot-a massa- cre that filled the Province with mourning. Unquestionably Montcalm might have prevented this outrage, the permission of which was on his part a wanton and inhuman violation of a sacred engagement. Hundreds besides those belonging to this Province, were sacrificed on this bloody arena. Urgent demands being sent on for reinforcements, an additional force of 250 men was raised here and placed under the command of Maj. Tash of Durham, who was stationed at Charlestown, by order of Webb, for the protection of the settlements on Connecticut river.
Chagrined at the ill success of the war, the English nation demanded a change of Ministers at home and of Military commanders abroad. William Pitt being placed at the head of the administration in 1758, soon infused into the English fleets and armies, a new spirit. A powerful expedition from Halifax took Louisburgh from the French, with its garrison of 5000 men and 120 pieces of cannon. At this place Col. Messerve of Portsmouth, an officer of distinguished merit, to whom Lord Loudon had presented an elegant piece of plate as a testimonial of his good services, closed his life. A force under Gen. Forbes succeeded in gaining possession of Fort du Quesne, now Pittsburg. Gen. Abercrombie, who had superseded Loudon in the chief command, advanced at the head of a third army, to which was attached a regiment of 800 men from this Province, to attack the strong fortress of Ticonderoga. He transported his men down Lake George on a bright and beautiful day, in more than a thousand boats, gliding in perfect order to the sound of fine martial music, Lord Howe in a large boat leading the van .- After landing, some of the troops were engaged in a skirmish with the enemy, in which Rogers' rangers bore a distinguished part. On the next day the whole army moved to attack the French lines ; but they were received with a murderous fire
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104
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1759.
of artillery and small arms, which they endured four hours, when they were compelled to retreat with the loss of 2000 men killed and wounded. Among the slain was Lord Howe, - a young British nobleman of great merit, to whom the Amer- cans were warmly attached. So bloody and disastrous a result filled the whole country with grief and consternation. The capture however of Fort Frontenac by Col. Bradstreet, whom Abercrombie after his return to Fort George had detached on this service, was some reparation of this dreadful loss.
The splendor of military transactions is but a thin veil drawn over the real miseries of war. Of the thousands of Ambercrombie's men who shared the pleasure of the brilliant passage down Lake George, with the anticipation of triumph shining in every eye, some hundreds on the very next day left the scenes of earth, suddenly and forever! The miseries inflicted by one great battle on the wounded, on widows and orphans, and on aged parents bereft of the props of their declining years, transcend the power of the human mind to estimate. To this we are to add the reflection of a multitude of souls appearing before the Judge of all the earth, probably many of them without preparation! Connected as it too often is, with moral turpitude, military glory is but a splendid bubble. To reconcile war, except when strictly defensive, with the precepts of the gospel, is altogether impossible .- The future and universal prevalence of Christian principles, we are permitted to hope, will banish from the earth this scourge of man.
Notwithstanding the disaster at Ticonderoga, the results of the last campaign were on the whole auspicious, and stimula- ted the English Ministry and the Colonists to make exertions the next year, which crushed the French power in America. A regiment of a thousand men from this Province under Col. Lovewell, brother of the Lovewell so celebrated in a former war, joined the army on the Hudson and took part in the reduction of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the gar- risons retiring on the approach of a superior force. Another British army, led by Gen. Wolfe, took, after the decisive and well known battle on the plains of Abraham, the city of Quebec, the strong capital of Canada. The reduction of this almost impregnable fortress filled the colonies with joy, and was celebrated in all the large towns with bells, processions, fireworks, illuminations, and other tokens of triumph. On the eighteenth of October, public thanks were given to Al- mighty God in the Churches for the interposition of his Prov- idence in these great events.
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105
PERIOD VI .- 1741-1763.
1759.]
The troops were now at leisure to inflict chastisement on the St. Francis Indians, the authors of the devastations com- mitted on the frontiers of New-Hampshire in this and the preceding war. Major Rogers and his Rangers were de- tached on this service from Crown Point ; and after a pas- sage down Lake Champlain and a march of twenty-one days through Canadian forests, he descried from the top of a tree the principal village of the tribe. Unsuspicious of the im- pending danger, the Indians spent most of the next night in dancing, and retired to their cabins for rest a little before break of day. No sooner were they buried in sleep than the assault was made, and quickly were their cabins and fields flowing with blood. Out of three hundred inhabitants, two hundred were slain, and the conflagration of their village closed the scene. It was found filled with English plunder and English scalps to the number of six hundred-a sight which gave edge to the resentments of the assailants. The retreat of the Rangers, which was made by way of Mem- phremagog Lake, towards the mouth of Ammonoosuc river, was attended with distressing reverses. Rogers kent his men in a body till their provisions failed, when he distributed them into small parties, that they might the better procure . subsistence on the way by hunting. Two of these parties were overtaken by pursuing bodies of the enemy, and most of the men killed or made prisoners. The commander with the main body, arrived in a starving condition at the Ammo- noosuc in Bath, where, in accordance with a plan previously concerted, lie expected to find a supply of provisions. Cruel disappointment awaited him: the party entrusted with the provisions had indeed been at the place, but after waiting some days without seeing or hearing ought of Rogers, had departed only a few hours before his arrival, leaving their fires still burning. Guns, which they distinctly heard, were fired to recal them ; but imagining they might have been fired by an enemy, they held on their course down the river. For this needless precipitation, subjecting as it did the famished Rangers to the bitterest suffering, the commanding officer of the returning party was deservedly cashiered. The nearest place of relief was Charlestown-at the distance of seventy miles-there being no settlement on the river above that town. Ground nuts and beach nuts were the only sustenance to be procured in the dreary forests ; and to such extremities were they reduced, that for the sake of drinking a little broth even slightly tinctured with animal matter, they boiled their powder horns, ball pouches, and other leathern accoutre-
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106
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE. [1760.
ments. A raft was constructed on which Rogers with two or three others, floated down Connecticut river to White river falls, where the raft was unfortunately lost. With extreme difficulty another was constructed by the slow process of burning down trees, on which he passed over other rapids to Charlestown, and despatched up the river canoes laden with provisions, to meet the starving survivors. Several had perished in the woods of despair, hunger and exhaustion, and the total loss in the retreat amounted to fifty men.
Of the sufferings endured by the unfortunate Rangers in this retreat, the case of Benjamin Bradley of Concord fur- nishes an affecting specimen. In company with two others, he left the main body on the upper part of the Connecticut river, taking a course which he supposed would lead him to his father's house on the Merrimac. He never arrived. Some hunters afterwards found in the wilderness of the White Mountains, a quantity of silver broaches and wampum scat- tered around the skeleton of a man, which from some proba- ble indications was conjectured to be that of Bradley.
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