USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 11
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The flying Calls notified the garrison at Contoocook, and a party of eight immediately went in pursuit. The Indians as yet had taken no prisoners, and without these to sell to the French the expedition would be unprofitable. So one Indian got beside a stump, another under a windfall, a third behind a greenwood tree, and whole squads lay down beneath thick clumps of bushes or the deep green branches of the fir copse. In other words, they made a regular ambuscade.
But somehow the keen-eyed settlers discovered them at a dis- tance, thanks to their good fortune, and ran away as fast as they could, with the Indians in full pursuit. But one Enos Bishop, who was not very nimble-footed, had the ill luck to be captured. The rest of the party escaped. The captured man was then com- pelled to go with the enemy, and was that day marched a long way towards the captive's happy land, Canada.
* Potter's Hist of Manchester, 291.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
Now it chanced that one Samuel Scribner and one John Bar- ker-we won't accuse them of laziness-had left their haying and clearing, and were looking after beaver meadows near New- found lake. It was a hot afternoon and they were sitting in the shade of a wide-spreading maple, by the shore of the bright, spark- ling water, when the Indians suddenly came upon them. They were so completely taken by surprise that resistance or escape was hopeless, and much against their inclination they were compelled to leave the crystal sheen, low set among the dark brown hills, and grace the captors' train.
Tradition has it that the war party feared pursuit, and hurried rapidly forward by the shortest route .* The second night they halted by a little lake called in the Indian tongue, as we have be- fore said, Wachipauka,; but by modern civilians, Meader pond. They built their camp and kindled their fire on the rocky beach. On the opposite shore a precipitous peak shot a thousand feet into the clear blue sky. During the evening hours the stars glimmered. on the cool night-air, the full moon shone brightly on the dark water, and its rays glinted from the granite mountain. At mid- night a black cloud spread across the sky, darkness grew grimmer, and a thick fog from the Connecticut, that had crept up the gorge of the Oliverian, settling dank and heavy on the craggy mountain brow, made the night still more black. At this moment John Barker rose silently among the sleeping Indians, glided over them like a pale ghost, unbound Bishop, and gently endeavored to wake him. Just then a wolf howled on the mountain top, a great owl in a lofty hemlock answered back the wild cry, and a sudden gust of wind whirled a shower of sparks into the dark shadows of the woods. An Indian, dreaming perhaps of the land of shades, was startled. He caught sight of the dim form of Barker bending over his companions. Leaping to his feet he uttered the war whoop. Across the lake the echo-god returned the wild battle- shout, and every brave sprang for his musket and his tomahawk. Barker was seized and doubly bound, the other captives were made more secure, and thereby a second Mrs. Duston tragedy was
* The Indians had a route by the lake, north, and they knew the shortest paths as well as the white men.
Acteon often told this story.
¡ Wachipauka is from Wadchu, mountain, Sipes, still water, and auke.
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ESCAPE OF BISHOP.
prevented. There was no more sleep in the Indian camp that night, and at the earliest dawn they were threading their way down the wild, roaring Oliverian, to the Connecticut.
In thirteen days they arrived at St. Francis village. Bishop and his good friends rejoiced, for they were leg-weary, foot-sore, and half-starved. Where Bishop was placed is not told, but Scrib- ner was sold to a Frenchman at Chamblay, and the valiant Barker to a jolly man of the same race, who lived near the Indian village.
Enos Bishop practiced with his heels that year, and one night ran away, as any other white man would have done under similar circumstances .* But he had a hard time of it. After toiling for eighteen days through the wilderness, suffering intensely from fatigue and hunger, he reached Number Four, from whence he returned to his family at Contoocook. Barker and Scribner were shortly after redeemed.
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' Precisely in the same manner as when Meloon and his family were captured, the inhabitants on the frontier were all terribly frightened. Andrew McClary, of Epsom, a descendant of the Scotch covenanters, was deputed Mercury. Like the swift son of Maiæe, with winged feet he flew to Portsmouth and narrated to the Honorable Governor and the worthy council the sad deaths of Mrs. Call and Timothy Cook, the probable capture of the missing men, and the great fight of the renowned eight, who went out to see the Indians, while only seven returned, and that every family on the frontier, to the number of eight all told, had left their fields, corn, hay, flocks, herds, and homes, and had come down to the lower towns.
His Excellency was astounded. The council looked aghast. But they proved themselves equal to the great emergency. The trumpet was not immediately sounded, but the decree went forth.
* Extract of a letter from an officer in Charleston, otherwise called Number Four, in the province of New Hampshire, dated October 4th, 1756 :
"This day arrived here one Enoch Byshop, an English captive from Canada, who was taken from Contoocook about two years since. He left Canada twenty-six days ago, in company with two other English captives, viz : William Hair, entered into General Shirley's regiment, and taken at Osewego, ( the other name unknown). They came away from Canada, without guns, hatchet or fire-works, and no more than three loaves of bread and four pounds of pork. As they suffered much for want of provisions, his companions were not able to travel any further than a little on this side of Cowass, where he was obliged to leave them last Lord's day, with- out any sustenance but a few berries. Six men were this evening sent out to look for them, but it is to be feared that they perished in the wilderness."-[Copied from the New York Mercury of October 25th, 1756, in the library of the N. Y. Hist. Soc., by John Libbey ].
I
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
But that they might show themselves men of deliberation and firm- ness, they caused said decree to be entered on the council minutes as follows: " Whereas, That the settlers might be encouraged to return to their habitations and secure their cattle and harvests, and to encourage other frontiers in that quarter, His Excellency be desired to give immediate orders for enlisting or impressing such a number of men as he may think proper, and dispose of the same."
Governor Wentworth acted. A detachment of Capt. Odlin's troop of twenty horse, with an officer in command, also a like detachment of Capt. Stevens' troop, were ordered to Stevenstown to guard the inhabitants on the frontier.
But Governor Wentworth was no fool. The idea did creep into his head that a few foot soldiers, fitted out in the Indian style, would be about as effective in fighting the painted red-skins as good cavalry troopers. Whereupon he immediately issued a fur- ther order to Colonel Joseph Blanchard, that he forthwith enlist and impress fifty, or more men, if he thought that number insuffi- cient, that he put them under an able and brave officer, one in whom he could confide, and order them to march immediately to Contoocook and Stevenstown. Then he added-and may be the framers of the great constitution of the United States copied this illustrious example when they inserted the clause whereby Con- gress should vote supplies for the army,-"I have convened the General Assembly. It will vote pay and supplies. The soldiers shall not want."
Colonel Blanchard was a brave officer. He immediately per- formed his duty. Our brave Captain John Goffe, of Amoskeag, marched to the scene of action. He behaved valiantly. For many a hot summer day he scouted through all the wild border, far up the Merrimack towards our beloved land, but not an Indian did he encounter.
And here a great historian, a lover of that race whose council fires have gone out, whose war songs are no longer heard, whose name only is chronicled by their destroyers, exclaims with much dignity and self-congratulation, that "the promptness of Governor Wentworth in this emergency, and the effective force detailed, preserved the inhabitants of the Merrimack valley from any further
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POOR PROTECTION.
molestation," when in fact there was not an Indian within a hundred miles of the place, and there did not choose to be. They had accomplished their purpose, and laughing in their moccasins, with dangling scalp locks and groaning captives they had gone to Canada.
Men frequently buy a padlock for the stable door after the horse is stolen. So New Hampshire afforded protection after the blow was struck.
But if Governor Wentworth did protect the Merrimack valley he did not the Connecticut, and he would have displayed his promptness to better advantage if he had also sent a "scout" to the latter place for a "preventive," as we shall immediately pro- ceed to show.
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CHAPTER IX.
ACCOUNT OF THE MANNER THE BRAVE AROSAGUNTICOOKS OF ST. FRANCIS PASSED CAPTAIN GOFFE; THE CAPTURE OF THE JOHN- SON FAMILY, WITH OTHER INCIDENTS NO DOUBT VERY INTER- ESTING TO THE PARTICIPANTS; TOGETHER WITH THE FIRST CAMPAIGN OF THE OLD FRENCH WAR.
THE St. Francis Indians, the great nation of the Arosa- gunticooks, were cunning men. Whether, like the Spartan youth, their understanding was cultivated in order that they might suc- cessfully practice craft, shrewdness, and honorable deception in war is not recorded, but we rather suspect it was. Like the Spar- tans also they had a terse brevity in their speech that might well be termed laconic. But, unlike the Spartans, they were fond of rough romance and poetry. There is no doubt of this. Many a wild legend could their medicine man recount; many a plaintive air did the Indian lover sing, as with palpitating heart he wood his dusky mate; and they always went forth to battle with the war- song pealing high. But the modest souls would never sing when they came near the enemy.
Captain Goffe scouted up the Merrimack. He paddled his canoe in the bright Pemigewassett and turned its prow up the Asquamchumauke. He snuffed the winds laden with forest sweets, as over bending woods and rustling leaves they came frolicking on their way from the Haystacks. And on the very morn of the day of his return, when Aurora stepped blushing like a modest damsel into the eastern sky, and the sunbeams were kindling in purple and gold on Moosilauke's bald crest, about thirty mighty savages were over the highlands in the Connecticut valley, and
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BORN UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
already were hurrying down "the long river of pines." Two days afterwards, August 29th, they were at Number Four. Downy couches on the bosom of mother earth did not woo their slumbers long. They were early risers. They leaped over the hedge on the border of the woods before a white man was stirring or a blue smoke curling from a cabin chimney. But a white family did stir quickly in James Johnson's house two minutes afterwards. John- son, wife, three children, and Miriam Williard, Mrs. Johnson's sister, together with Peter Larabee and Ebenezer Farnsworth, who were lodging there that night, with all the household provis- ions and furniture to which the " war-hawks" took a fancy, consti- tuted the spolia optima. These captives and this plunder were about as much as the war party could conveniently manage, and so they concluded to instantly decamp. As their appearance had been sudden, their disappearance was more so. Not a white set- tler knew of the dire catastrophe for a long time afterwards.
But the spoils were cumbersome, the children were young, and Mrs. Johnson in a very critical condition, so they did not travel very far that day. On the morrow, in the deep wilderness, fifteen miles from her home, Mrs. Johnson gave birth to a daugh- ter. The sailor boy, born on the deep blue sea, has Neptune beat- ing time with foamy trident to his own deep basso of thanksgiving and praise at the christening, so that ever after the boy loves the crested waves and the music of the winds piping in the shrouds. So Ceres, the earth mother, assisted at the birth of the forest child, and all the sylvan nymphs danced for joy, as they crowned the little cherub with garlands of wild-flowers, kissed dimples into her rosy cheeks and covered with nectar her glowing lips.
The mother called the daughter " CAPTIVE." But whether in after life she loved the wild woods, its cool dells and shaded grot- tos, its deep green foliage, its singing birds, its wild wind sighing through the branches, or its deep and awful roar in the storm- like the voice of the distant ocean-we cannot say. All we do know of her further is that she lived to be married like other women, and found a kind husband in one George Kimball. He was a colonel of foot-soldiers, but whether serving in the militia or in the wars we were never informed.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
The Indians may be called cruel savages for carrying off this family and plundering their dwelling; but this time they can not be called human butchers. As our readers must already know, they did not dash out little Captive's brains against the nearest tree; on the contrary, they kindly cared for her, waited a whole day for Mrs. Johnson, carried the unfortunate mother on a litter, and afterwards it is said, though we somewhat doubt it, furnished her with a horse. Like a man who would keep his ox well, or like the master who would have fat sleek slaves, this was not all done out of pure kindness of heart. On reaching Canada the In- dians sold all the big captives-and little Captive also-to the French for a good round sum. But an early historian of this sad tale says that they met with great difficulties and experienced great suffering at the hands of these polite descendants of the noble Franks. After two long years, Mrs. Johnson, her sister, and two daughters returned home. Where went Larabee and Farnsworth is not recorded. Mr. Johnson did not behave in a manner satisfactory to the hospitable sons of Gaul, and so for three years he was kindly suffered to pine in a Canadian prison. At the end of that time he with his son had the good fortune to return to Number Four by way of Boston.
But the eldest daughter had a different fate. Like many another giddy damsel, she became deeply enamored of the things of the new country. She became either so exceedingly wise or foolish, we can hardly tell which, that she fell in love with a shaved head, a straight gown, a white veil, a string of beads, a Latin prayer-book, and a chapel bell, and in a nunnery concluded to spend a portion of her days in the enjoyment of "those religious festivities in which some priests, certain shaking quaker elders, and not a few ministers, so much delight."*
If a messenger went to Portsmouth to tell of this hostile inroad of the enemy, we are not informed of the fact. At any rate no particular notice was taken of it. Settlers in the Connec- ticut valley might take care of themselves or look to Massachusetts for aid. New Hampshire could not now attend to them. The times were pregnant with great events. Even the shrieking
* Thus wrote certain historians long ago; but it must be remembered that they hated all religions except their own.
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THREE ARMIES IN THE FIELD.
autumn blast portended horrid war. Mars, hot and fierce, leaped across the Atlantic on an angry visit to the New World. All the gods buckled on their armor and put themselves in battle array. The mighty deep was lashed in fury, as hostile fleets swept over it; the pent-up fires in the earth beneath blazed anew under the tramp of hostile squadrons, and the awful bolts of Jove thundered at mid-winter in the heavens.
Three armies, such as the western world had never before seen, were put in rapid motion. General Braddock, accompanied by Washington, penetrated the southern wilderness. His destina- tion was Fort Du Quesne, on the Ohio river. But he never reached it. He perished, with three-fourths of his gallant soldiers, in the dark forests of the Alleghanies, Governer Shirley led a second army against Fort Niagara. With his cannon he was to batter down its strong walls. But their roar never mingled with the thunder of the mighty cataract near which stood the fortress. The expedition was a failure. General Johnston led a third force against Fort Edward. And here fortune favored the hero. New Hampshire furnished a regiment for his army, commanded by Colonel Blanchard, of Dunstable, now Nashua.
How they rendezvoused at Stevenstown, and marched and countermarched through our beloved Pemigewassett country, up the Asquamchumauke, and across the land now called Warren and so to the Coos country, we shall endeavor most faithfully to narrate.
CHAPTER X.
TREATING OF THE ASSEMBLING OF THE REGIMENT AND THE BUILD- ING OF THE LOG FORTRESS AT COOS, WITH OTHER INTERESTING ADVENTURES IN THE COUNTRY ABOUT LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
THE call to arms was sounded. Mars' messengers went forth and New Hampshire was quick to respond. In the style of the old Scotch poets it is related how from Strawberry Bank, Boar's Head, and Dover Neck, came a company of hardy ship builders, cod fishers, and fur traders,-men used to hard knocks, to ocean's battling storms, and cunning wiles of Indians. From Squamscott's winding valley, Newichannock's bright stream, and Pautuckaway's deep indented shores, came a company of stal- wart farmers, full fifty strong. From Massabesic's blue waves, the twin Uncanoonucks, and the falls of Amoskeag, came Fraziers, Mckenzies, Campbells, and Grants, Scotia's descendants, amount- ing to two full companies. The latter were potato-planting men, linen spinners,-besides numerous shad, eel, and salmon fishers - all good tough fellows, used to shillalah fights, and not a few had taken many a bout in the woods after the Indians. From the pebbly-bottomed Nashua, the cloud-capped Monadnock, and the frontier about bristling Kearsarge, came farmers, hunters, trap- pers, and wild borderers. Captain Goffe and Captain Moore, both brave Derryfielders, men who never quailed beneath the Indian's eagle eye (to put it grandly ), and who loved the music of the whirring tomahawk and the singing shot, each commanded a company.
Captain Robert Rogers, of Starkstown, now Dunbarton, whom the war-cry of a thousand braves could not move a hair, marched
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THE "RANGERS."
at the head of seventy jolly bruisers, who were accustomed to fish at Amoskeag falls. Noah Johnson was one of his lieutenants and John Stark was the other. The latter was now a long, lank young man, with a frame not encased in a coat of mail, but in iron muscle, with a physique which could endure without a moment's sleep a march of a hundred long miles through the snow when four feet deep. With these lieutenants, Rogers had the bravest company of the old French war. They were known as the "Rangers." They carried but little baggage and were lightly armed; and as the French employed the Indians, so were these employed by the Eng- lish to scour the woods, to waylay the enemy, or to obtain supplies.
As Xerxes rendezvoused at Capadocian Critella, or the Greeks of Cyrus the Younger at Sardis, so all these great companies, fully equipped, with knapsacks on their backs, canteens and haversacks at their sides, and old queen's arms on their shoulders, debouched from the deep wilderness upon the broad Merrimack intervals at Bakerstown, alias Stevenstown, now Franklin, N. H. Colonel Blanchard, of Dunstable, as we have before stated, was the great generalissimo or commander-in-chief.
There was a log fortress in the centre of the black stump clearing at Stevenstown. The said clearing was afterwards a fine field, owned by the Hon. Daniel Webster. Around the above- mentioned fortress Colonel Blanchard mustered his regiment, while all day long was heard the din of preparation, as the sappers and miners and artisans were engaged in building ba- teaux on the river bank. With these they were going to transport their baggage along the navigable waters.
Governor Wentworth, as we have before shown, was an ex- ceedingly learned man in the arts of war. He had sent good cavalry soldiers, jolly moss-troopers, to scout through the wind- falls and tangled thickets. He was also a man of taste and fond of artistic beauty. This was very commendable, and he exhibited it by building for himself a beautiful rustic residence on the shore of Lake Winnepisseogee, from the silver surface of which as he glided along in his sailboat he could see the gaged hackmatack mountains in the great wild north. He now showed himself a greater geographer than Ptolemy or Christopher Columbus him- self, for he verily believed that Albany, the place to which he was
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
to send the regiment, lay in the path of a direct line drawn from Stevenstown to the north pole. Besides, all his council and con- fidential advisers believed the same. So the order was issued to Colonel Blanchard, and that gallant officer in turn commanded. Captain Rogers to proceed with his rangers due north one degree west to the upper Coos meadows, and there construct a fort for the accommodation of the little army when it should follow.
The rangers left the old garrison house in the before-mentioned field and followed the trail up the Merrimack. With their trusty queen's arms on their shoulders, their hunting knives in their belts, their wolf-skin caps, their bright red shirts, buttoned close about their throats, their short sheep's-gray frocks tucked within their moose hide or sheep-skin pants, and with real Indian moc- casins on their feet, the rangers presented even a more picturesque appearance than their painted foe, with tufted scalp-locks, dirty breech clouts, and long-haired leggins.
They pushed up the Asquamchumauke, camped one night on the shore of the cold mountain lake, Wachipauka, under the shadow of precipitous Webster Slide, and in six days reached the upper meadows. They built the fort on the east bank of the Connecti- cut, just below the mouth of the upper Ammonoosuc river, in the present town of Northumberland. It was constructed of huge logs from the dense wilderness and the summer winds now sighed through the thick leaved trees and anon moaned around the pick- etted palisades of the wooden fortress.
After they had completed the work of course there must be a christening. So each ranger took a good swig of old West India from his canteen-thus pouring a libation to the sylvan deities. Then an old soldier, mounting the topmost timber, delivered him- self of a short speech, this being a part of the ceremony of " naming the building," as was the old time-out-of-mind custom, in which without doubt he remarked what a good geographer the governor was, and ended by calling the stronghold, Fort Went- worth. Then the orator descended from the rostrum, and the whole company joined in three lusty cheers, which awoke all the bats, owls, and similar drowsy gods for many a league around. They then sat down to a bountiful feast of corn cakes and fresh
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GOVERNOR WENTWORTH'S GEOGRAPHY.
moose meat, of which last they had taken care to secure an ample quantity.
On the morrow a messenger came. His Excellency had dis- covered a slight mistake in his reckoning. He had come to the sage conclusion that Albany lay nearer a line drawn due west from Stevenstown to China than that to the north pole. Captain Rogers received a different order. With his rangers he left the ungarrisoned fort to slowly rot away under the shadow of the white summits of Percy peaks, and marched directly to Number Four. From thence with the rest of the regiment they struggled through the wilderness over the Green mountains and joined Gen- eral Lyman, who commanded the New England troops.
In the campaigns about Lake George, Crown Point, and Ticon- deroga, the whole New Hampshire regiment, by their endurance and daring, won an enviable reputation. But Rogers-who soon rose to the rank of Major-far exceeded all the rest with his bold rangers. They fought like heroes every man, when at the capitu- lation of Oswego the savages butchered the captive English by scores. They were the bravest of the brave, when at Fort William Henry the butchery of Oswego was re-enacted with additional scenes of horror.
The heroes of Charles the Twelfth never won brighter renown than the New Hampshire contingent, when Rogers with only one hundred and eighty of his rangers fell into an ambush of over seven hundred French and Indians. At midwinter, with the mer- cury below zero, in a dense forest, and with the snow four feet deep, they fought all day long. The blood of many a poor fellow stained the crystal snow, and at night the moon gleamed on the crimson crust. In the twilight Rogers at the head of his few comrades charged up the hill against the line of the enemy, broke it, and escaped. A mile away over the ridge they met John Stark coming to their relief.
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