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 5
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The news of this important Colonial revolution was received in New-Hampshire with joy, but the event left the Province destitute of a regular government. All the towns with the ex- ception of Hampton chose delegates to meet in Convention, for consultation on the measures proper for the crisis. At their first session they came to no conclusion ; but at a subsequent session agreed to return under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Petitions to this effect signed by more than 300 persons were presented to the Legislature of that Province, who at once granted the request. Only as a temporary expedient did the people resort to this second union with Massachusetts, which subsisted no longer than through the brief space from 1690 to 1692 ; during which they were represented in her Legislature and governed by her laws.
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43
PERIOD III .- 1679-1698.
1689.]
In resuming the narration of Indian hostilities we must return to the year 1689. Some efforts were made, but made in vain, to conciliate the savages by sending them presents and invitations to conclude a treaty of peace. Stimulated with the thirst of taking vengeance on Major Waldron for his seizure of their brethren thirteen years before ;- an event remembered by them with deep though silent resentment-they concerted an attack on Dover. Even the Penacooks, who had never before shed English blood, joined with the Ossipees and Pe- quawkets in the enterprize, which was conducted by Hodgkins the Penacook sachem, grandson of Passaconaway. There were several fortified houses in Dover to which the inhabitants resorted at night for safety. Approaching the place with pro- fessions of peace, the Indians sent two of their squaws to each house to ask lodgings for the night, with the intention of opening the doors after the inmates were asleep, and giving the signal of a whistle to the savages to rush in. The strata- gem succeeded; the long continued peace had lulled the Major's suspicions asleep. Some of his neighbors had indeed apprehended danger, but he told them to go and plant their pumpkins and he would tell them "when the Indians would break out." The squaws were admitted into four of the houses, of which Major Waldron's was one. Mesandowit, a chief, he also admitted to lodge in his house, who while at supper asked him, " What would you do, brother Waldron, if the strange Indians should come ? " The old soldier rejoined that he could assemble an hundred men by lifting up his finger.
After the family had retired in fancied security and all was still, the gate was opened and the signal given. In rushed the savages, thirsting for blood. Major Waldron, aroused by the noise from his sleep, seized his sword, and though bowed clown with the weight of eighty years, drove the assailants out of his apartment throughi two or three doors, when one of them getting behind him stunned him with the blow of a hatchet. Placing him in his great chair on a large table they deridingly asked him, " Who shall judge Indians now ? " They cut off his nose and ears and gashed his breast with knives, saying one after another, " I cross out my account." At length he fainted from loss of blood, and as he was falling from his seat they despatched him with a sword. Thus fell this gallant man, venerable for years and public services, who had sus- ained the highest civil offices and long been a pillar of the Province.
Two other houses were surprised in a similar manner, in one of which several of the inmates were killed. The owner
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44
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1689.
of the other, a Mr. Coffin, not being obnoxious to them, they spared him and his family. They found in his house a bag of money which they made him throw by handfulls on the floor, and amused themselves in scrambling for it. A son of Mr. Coffin owned a fortified house, into which he had denied admittance to the squaws in the preceding evening. The ene my required him to surrender, which he refused. They then brought forward his father, threatening to kill him before his eyes ; on which, to save the father's life the son yielded to their demand. The occupants of another house were alarmed by the barking of a dog in season to secure the gate, just as the savages were about to rush in. While they were busy in plun- dering the captured garrisons, the families of both the Coffin's made their escape.
Twenty-three persons fell victims in this bloody tragedy, and twenty-nine were made prisoners. The enemy effected a speedy retreat, carrying their prisoners to Canada where they sold them to the French :- the first English prisoners ever car- ried to that country. Being then at war with the English, the French opened a market for the purchase of scalps and pris- oners, with a view to encourage the Indians to lay waste the New-England settlements.
Amid these barbarities, an instance of Indian gratitude de- serves remembrance. At the time of the seizure at Dover in 1676, Elizabeth Heard concealed a young Indian in her house and aided him to escape. For this act of kindness she now received an ample requital. Coming up the river from Ports- mouth in a boat with her children and some others, on the very night of the assault, she was alarmed by a strange uproar and made directly for Waldron's where she hoped to find safety. In so doing she unhappily threw herself into the hands of the enemy, who had at that moment possession of the house. They not only spared her life, but permitted her to escape without molestation. The Indian whom she had formerly befriended was one of the party ; he recognized his benefactress, and his influence with the others procured her this important favor.
A multiplicity of affecting incidents are connected with the massacre just related. The Rev. Mr. Emerson of Berwick was in Dover on the day preceding the attack, and was urged to pass the night under the hospitable roof of Maj. Waldron. A kind Providence disposed him to decline the invitation and thus preserved him from death! Mather gives an account of Sarah Gerrish, an interesting and beautiful little girl seven years old, a grand-daughter of Major Waldron's. Being
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1689.]
PERIOD III .- 1679-1698.
in his house on that fatal night, she fell into the hands of the Indians and was taken to Canada. Her sufferings were ex- treme. In her protracted journeyings, they once began their march in the morning leaving her behind, fast asleep; on awaking and finding herself alone in a hideous wilderness, she was frightened at the thought of being torn by wild beasts, ran after the Indians crying, and by following their track on the snow at length overtook them. At another time her master terrified her by making her stand against a tree, while he was loading his gun as if preparing to shoot her. Once she was rudely pushed into a river by an Indian woman and narrowly escaped drowning. Often were her feelings tortured by inti- mations from the young Indians that she was to be burnt to death. One evening a great fire was kindled and her master told her she was to be roasted alive; on which she burst into tears, and hanging upon the savage importunately begged him to save her from the fire. Having arrived in Canada she was purchased by a French lady, and after some time redeemed and restored to her friends. Another circumstance attending this tragical affair must not be forgotten. The government of Massachusetts had received some notice of the designs of the Indians against Waldron, and forwarded a letter to apprise him of his danger: but by some unavoidable delay of the bearer at the ferry over the Merrimac, the message did not arrive till after the mischief had been perpetrated.
Aroused by the severe blow struck by the enemy at Dover, the government sent expeditions to Penacook, (now Concord) and Winnepiseogee, to attack them in their own quarters; but as they fled into the recesses of the wilderness the troops could do little more than destroy their corn. In August, several companies from Massachusetts marched through this Province to protect the settlements in Maine. After their departure, a body of Indians hovering in the precincts of Durham, discov- ered a party of eighteen men going from a garrisoned house in the morning to their work in the field. They intercepted their retreat, and with the exception of one man killed them all. Afterwards they attacked the house, which was gallantly defended by a few women and two boys, who wounded several of the assailants, and refused to surrender till they had received i promise of quarter. The savages inhumanly violated the promise by killing some of the children, one of whom they ransfixed with a sharp stake in the presence of the agonized nother !
Numerous repetitions of these outrages on humanity occur- ed in 1690. The French Governor of Canada sent out three
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46
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1690.
expeditions against the English settlements, one of which fell on Berwick in Maine and killed or captivated eighty persons. A body of the surrounding inhabitants pursued and skirmished with the foe, but could not recover the captives. Robert Rogers, one of the prisoners, a corpulent man unable to carry the load laid on him, threw it down and fled into the woods. He was overtaken, bound to a tree, and after a little reprieve for prayer and taking leave of his friends, was tortured to death with all the torments which diabolical ingenuity could think of-the Indians drowning his dying groans with their dreadful yells.
The destruction of Berwick animated the savages to other acts of devastation. A party under the noted Chief Hoophood fell on Newington, killing and captivating twenty persons .- About midsummer another band killed eight men who were mowing in a field near Lamprey river, and the next day made an unsuccessful attack on Hilton's garrison in Exeter. Two ranging companies under Captains Floyd and Wiswall fell ir with their track and followed it to Wheelright's pond in Lee where they came upon the enemy. The encounter was long and sanguinary ; Wiswall and fourteen others fell. The sur vivors under Floyd retreated, leaving several men on the bloody field wounded. Next morning their friends found them alive the Indians having hastily retreated, probably not without loss The latter were not however disabled from prosecuting thei destructive enterprises, for in the course of a few days mor they killed between Lamprey river and Amesbury, not less according to the statement of Belknap, than forty persons.
Aware that the French influence in Canada was the chie source of their miseries, the New-Englanders formed a plai for the conquest of that country. A force of 2000 men, com manded by Sir William Phipps, sailed from Boston for Que bec. Having been retarded by unavoidable hindrances, the did not arrive there till October ; winter was at hand; th troops became sickly and dispirited, and it was concluded t abandon the enterprize. Several ships were lost on the passag home : one was stranded on the desolate island of Anticost where the crew erected a few huts and lived through the win ter on less than quarter allowance. More than thirty out c sixty died of cold and want; yet these unfortunate men main tained a tolerable order, and observed the Sabbath and othe occasional days of prayer. One of their number, an unfeel ing villain who was repeatedly detected in breaking open thei storehouse, and devouring like a glutton those scanty supplie on the due distribution of which their very existence depen ded, they felt authorized by the law of self-preservation to pu
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PERIOD III .- 1679-1698.
1692.]
to death. In the spring, five of the survivors ventured to sea in a crazy little boat, and after innumerable escapes from floa- ting icc-banks, arrived at Cape Ann, having made a passage of 1000 miles. By their friends they were received as alive from the dead, and a vessel was immediately sent to Anticosti to bring home the other survivors. This expedition involved the people in debt, and the failure overspread this Province in common with the rest of New-England with a deep gloom.
In this critical state of affairs a kind Providence disposed he Indians to propose a cessation of hostilities through the vinter, and justice requires the acknowledgement that they ob- served the agreement with good faith. After the expiration of he truce, they resumed the tomahawk in the summer of 1691. in September a party of them came from the eastward in canoes o Ryc, and killed or carried into captivity twenty-one of the inhabitants.
The year 1692 is crowded with important events. In the lepth of winter, New-Hampshire was thrown into alarm by he destruction of York in Maine, only a few miles from the Provincial line, where the savages butchered fifty persons, nd took seventy-three prisoners. Among the slain was the Lev. Mr. Dummer, the minister of the place, an exemplary nd excellent man, who was shot as he was mounting his orse to escape, and fell dead on his face. This disaster con- ibuted to the preservation of the Pascataqua settlements, by rousing the people to unceasing vigilance. A party from Dover fell in with a scouting band of Indians, and killed or rounded most of them-a check which kept them for a time t a more respectful distance.
Another important revolution in the government took place is year. Samuel Allen, merchant of London, who had pre- iously purchased of Mason's heirs, their claim to the soil of ew-Hampshire, obtained from the King the appointment of Governor ; and for his son in-law, John Usher of Boston, the pointment of Lieutenant Governor of the Province. As llen did not himself visit this country for a considerable eriod afterwards, Usher entered upon the government and Iministered it for some years. With great reluctance the eople submitted to the change, and saw the dissolution of cir second, but brief union with Massachusetts, with undis- mnbled regret. The transfer of the Proprietary claim from ason to Allen, they regarded as merely a change of names, id anticipated a repetition of former vexations under a new aimant. Lieut. Governor Usher resided at Boston, but fre- ently journied into this Province to meet his Council and
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48
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1692.
attend the Sessions of the Legislature. He was frank, gen- erous, and not regardless of the interests of the people : but at the same time, fond of parade and somewhat imperious in his deportment. Had there been no other distasteful circum- stance, his connection with Allen, to whose interest he was of course attached, was enough to render him unacceptable to the people, determined as they were not to hold their estates under a proprietary lease subject to an annual rent. About the same time a new form of government under the second Charter, went into operation in Massachusetts: and that re- markable child of fortune-Sir William Phipps -- one of the younger sons of an obscure family of twenty-six children, born and brought up on the banks of the Kennebec-a me- chanic, uneducated, and unable to read till he was twenty-two years old-who by his successful enterprise of discovering and fishing up from the bottom of the sea a great treasure, which had been long before sunk in a Spanish vessel, had acquired both wealth and rank-was appointed Governor of that Province.
One of Usher's first efforts was to obtain possession of the records and files of the Superior Court, including all the pa- pers relative to Mason's suit. On the dissolution of the gov- ernment at the termination of Andros' administration, they had been forcibly taken from Chamberlain the Secretary of the Province and Clerk of the Superior Court, by Captain Pickering of Portsmouth, who, with the view of throwing ar obstruction in the way of Mason's further proceedings, had concealed them. To enable Allen to proceed in the estab- lishment of his Proprietary claim, it was necessary to recover these records. The Lieut. Governor ordered Pickering to be brought before him, and demanded their return. Picker. ing refused to give any account of them, except to the Assembly or some person authorized by that body to receive them : on which Usher imprisoned him. After a short deten tion he submitted, and delivered the papers to the Secretary by Usher's order.
To the calamities of war were now superadded severa others. The small-pox, imported in bales of cotton from the West Indies, prevailed in Portsmouth and Greenland ; and as neither the method of inoculation nor the proper treatmen of the disease were then known, many died. The publi mind, especially in Massachusetts, began at this time to b strangely agitated by the witchcraft delusion. Many person imagined themselves to be afflicted by the spectres of other appearing to them, beating, pinching, pricking, and otherwis
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49
PERIOD III .- 1679-1698.
1693.]
tormenting them. The prisons were soon filled with the ac- cused, and nineteen unhappy victims of popular delusion were executed. Divines, Judges, Lawyers, and Jurors gave to the excitement the whole weight of their belief, and thus led the country into a labyrinth of errors and iniquities .- Things came to that pass that the easiest way to escape accu- sation was to accuse others, and at lengthi persons of the first standing in the community were accused. A son of Gov. Bradstreet, charged with having bewitched a dog, and ridden on his back through the air, was obliged to flee into New- Hampshire, which was not greatly affected by the phrenzy .- Another son of Gov. Bradstreet, who as a magistrate had been concerned in examining and committing to prison many of the accused, being himself accused of killing nine persons by witchcraft, was glad to escape into Maine. Among the accused were the Secretary of Connecticut and the lady of Gov. Phipps. The evil became intolerable, and men began to ask where it would end ? A little reflection brought back the people to their senses ; the prosecutions were dropped ; the prisons were thrown open; and the Judges and Jurors concerned in the trials, made public confession of their errors.
Though the Indian war impoverished the people and hin- dered the growth of the Province, we yet find some faint traces of internal improvement. A Post Office, connected with that at Boston, was established at Portsmouth in 1693 .- Great Island, Little Harbor, and Sandy Beach, (now Rye) werc made a distinct town by the name of New-Castle. In the spring of the next year twenty persons from Hampton, having obtained from Usher a charter of the township, began the settlement of Kingston ; but the danger of a surprisal by the savages induced many of them to abandon the enterprize, and rendered the progress of the new settlement extremely slow. So well were the frontiers guarded this year that the Indians found themselves unable to effect much mischief, and in Au- gust sent in proposals for a peace, which for a brief space they observed and which gave the Province a little respite from war.
Had the savages been left to themselves they had probably remained quiet. But Villieu, the commander of a small French fort at Penobscot, was busy in persuading them to break the treaty they had just made, and finally made them believe that " to break faith with heretics was no sin." A body of 250 Eastern Indians assembled under his command to attack the English, and Durham was selected as the devoted object .- They arrived on the borders of the place, undiscovered, on
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50
HISTORY OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE.
[1696.
the evening of June 17th, 1694, made their attack early the next morning, destroyed five garrisoned houses out of twelve, and killed or led away captive about an hundred of the people. The house of Mr. Buss, minister of the town, together with his valuable library was burnt. Seven fortified houses were suc- cessfully defended. In one of them was a man who had been kept awake through the night by toothache ; hearing the first gun he roused the inmates just in time to secure the gate .- Bickford, the owner of another house, having sent off his family in a boat, undertook a defence alone, and by changing his dress frequently and firing briskly made the enemy believe there were several men within, and induced them to draw off. While the main body retreated northward, a detachment went to the farm of Madam Ursula Cutts, the relict of President Cutts, and killed her and three of her workmen who were making hay. This respectable lady had been advised to retire to a place of safety, her farm lying on the bank of the river, two miles above Portsmouth, remote from succor in case of at- tack. She concluded to remain till Saturday night to finish some work then in hand, but was slain a little after noon of that very day., Col. Waldron and his wife with their son, had engaged to dine with her that day,and were preparing to go to her house in a boat, when the unexpected arrival of some friends detained them at home. This was a providential es- cape-had they gone, they had probably shared her fate. While dining in their own house at Dover they had the melancholy intelligence of her death.
Little mischief was done by the savages in 1695. In the summer of the next year a considerable party of them who came from the eastward in canoes, made a morning attack at Portsmouth plain, two miles from the town. They had been lurking in the woods some while, and suspicions had been excited the preceding day by the cattle running out of the bushes, affrighted : but the circumstance was not sufficiently regarded. Nineteen persons were killed or made prisoners, and several buildings burned. A company of militia under Capt. Shackford pursued the marauders, and came up with them as they were busy in cooking their breakfast, at a place since called Breakfast Hill, between Greenland and Rye .- Rushing upon them suddenly they recovered the captives and the plunder ; but the Indians fled to their canoes and effected their escape, eluding several armed boats which had been stationed to intercept their retreat. A few weeks afterwards, some people of Dover returning home from public worship
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PERIOD III .- 1679-1698.
1697.]
fell into an ambushment, and had nine of their number killed, wounded, or captivated.
A gallant exploit was performed in this Province by a heroine of Haverhill, Ms., in April, 1697. Mrs. Dustan of that place, with her nurse and infant, was made prisoner and led into the wilderness, where the savages finding the infant an encum- brance, quickly despatched it. The women were conducted to a little island near the mouth of Contoocook river within the limits of Boscawen, and detained in charge of a party of In- dians consisting of two men, three women, and seven children. Here Mrs. Dustan formed the bold design of escaping. Finding her keepers one niglit fast asleep, she with no other aid than that of her nurse and an English boy taken from Worcester, killed ten of the twelve savages and made her way with their scalps through the trackless wilderness to Boston ! The fame of her heroic achievement spread far and wide, and procured her many presents, among others a valuable one from Gov. Nicholson of Maryland. A relation of one more incident will close the gloomy detail of Indian barbarities in this war. In June a party of the enemy concealed themselves in the woods about Exeter, intending to attack the town the next morning. Though dissuaded by their friends, several women and chil- dren ventured into the fields at an early hour to gather straw- berries, when some one fired a gun to frighten them. The town was alarmed and an armed force quickly brought together. Supposing themselves to have been discovered, the Indians staid only long enough to kill one, wound another, and capti- vate a third, when they fled with precipitation. In this appa- rently accidental alarm the reflecting mind sees the hand of an all-governing Disposer,interposed to preserve the town from utter destruction.
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