USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 12
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He who fought at Trenton, the hero of Bennington, left his blanket, his provision, and his soldiers to protect Rogers, and alone pushed back on his trail forty miles through the wilderness to Fort Edward. He reached it a little past midnight, obtained a company of soldiers, also handsleds for the wounded, returned on his track, and burst in upon Rogers' camp at a little past noon. John Stark
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had travelled a hundred and twenty miles in less than two days, without rest and without a moment's sleep.
But the crowning achievement of the rangers was their de- struction of the St. Francis village and their retreat through the wilderness to the meadows of Coos, lying green beneath the shadows of lofty Moosilauke. As this was the effective stroke that opened our northern paradise, Warren, to the white settler, we shall endeavor to faithfully narrate all its most interesting details.
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CHAPTER XI.
A LONG MARCH THROUGH THE WOODS; A TERRIBLE ATTACK ON AN INDIAN VILLAGE; A BLOODY BUTCHERY-AWFUL TO THE PAR- TICIPANTS-BUT WITHAL VERY PLEASANT TO READ ABOUT.
LIKE Robin Hood's forest, like the villages of the Norman freebooters, or in later times like Algiers, the rendezvous of the Algerine pirates, numerous war parties for more than half a cen- tury had continually been dispatched from the little village of St. Francis to harass the English pioneers. Located at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and the St. Francis rivers, it was of easy access. From it they could proceed to Lake Champlain by the river Sorrel, or ascend the river St. Francis, cross the highlands to the Connecticut, and drop down the latter stream. Then, hang- ing like a black cloud over the border settlements, they would hurl their fury upon the defenceless inhabitants, and fly back with scalps and captives, to receive their reward from the French. In this manner they had made the Pemigewassett territory a danger- . ous abiding-place, and kept new settlers far away from the histor- ical land of Warren.
A long continued warfare had enriched the St. Francis village, and forty dwellings, thrown together in a disorderly clump, pre- sented a strange contrast to the ancient Indian wigwams. A small Catholic church stood in the midst. In its steeple hung a bell brought from France, whose clear tones summoned the villagers to matin hymns and holy vespers. Within its walls waxen can- dles shed their flickering light on golden crosses. Pictures of patron saints hung on the dingy columns. In a niche behind the altar stood a large silver image of the Virgin Mary, while in the low gallery was a small but beautiful organ of excellent tone.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
Their worship here, as Lord Macaulay has perhaps unjustly remarked, was what the Catholic religion ever is to the ignorant and superstitious-an appeal to the senses and the passions rather than to the understanding. Pictures, crosses, gorgeous altars and images, charmed the eye. The beautiful strains of the organ, now soft and delicate as the notes of an æolian harp, now rushing and wild as the storm on the mountains, anon deep and heavy as the muttering of distant thunder, enraptured the ear, while burn- ing incense in the censer of the French friar who officiated, his mystic words and chant accompanying, and the tolling of the concealed bell, made the Sabbath worship most impressive, and cast a strange spell over the wild spirits of the savage braves. But the very pious French friar of St. Francis had other duties besides ministering to the religious wants of the red men. It is said that he was the modest, meek, and holy tool of the very hon- est and peaceable French government. With his keen perception of human nature, and his "good Jesuitical qualities," he was to the Indians what the legislative branch is in a civil government. He voted war, and stirred up his devout church members to fight the English, while the grand sachem, a brave chief-once person- ated in the heretofore mentioned and renowned Acteon-was the executive. For he, like most good Catholics, implicitly obeyed the priest and led the war-parties.
As the conquest of Canada now appeared quite probable, it was thought good policy to make peace with these Indians. Ac- cordingly the British commander sent Captain Kennedy with a flag of truce to arrange a treaty. But they seemed to have forgotten how politely Captain Stevens had received them, and how they had been entertained with sundry mugs of flip, when their own flag of truce was presented at Number Four. With a sort of Punic faith or Roman honor, they seized the gallant captain and made him their prisoner.
This proceeding enraged General Amherst. He resolved to chastise them and teach them a short lesson in the law of nations that seemed to have escaped their memory. For this purpose he issued, September 13th, 1759, the following order:
" Maj. Rogers: This night join the detachment of two hun- dred rangers yesterday ordered out. Proceed to Mississqui bay.
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DELENDA EST CARTHARGO.
March from thence through the woods. Attack the settlements on the south side of the St. Lawrence. Effectually disgrace and injure the enemy. Let honor and success attend the English arms. Remember barbarities committed by the enemy's Indian scoun- drels. Take deep revenge-but spare the women and children. Neither kill nor hurt them. When you have performed this ser- vice, join the army again."*
This order was worthy of a Spartan Cleomenes or Agesilaus, and the way in which it was executed was equal to a feat of old Scotch Mclan, or the sally of a horde of Tartars from their fast- nesses on the steppes of Asia.
Rogers and his men struck camp that very night. Embarking in bateaux, for ten days they kept directly down Lake Champlain. The weather was delightful. The hardy rangers vigorously plied their oars. When the wind was favorable they rigged a sail in the prow. The stirring strains of a solitary bugle, echoing from the indented shores and dying away upon the dimpling waves, cheered them on. Night and day they kept on their course. No sleepy Palinarius fell from the high-pointed stern. Each bark followed that of Rogers, and every man, trusting him as a guiding star, faithfully discharged his duty. But as they approached the outlet they grew more cautious. At times they would hug close to the shore, and then again would strike boldly across from headland to headland, carefully avoiding the French cruisers that hovered about the foot of the lake.
At Mississqui bay they left their boats and provisions in charge of two trusty Indians and struck into the wilderness. There was no road. They struggled through thickets, over fallen trees, and forded streams now swollen by the autumn rains. At night of the second day the boat guard overtook them. Four hundred French and Indians had captured their bateaux, and two hundred were now on their trail. This caused much uneasiness. Their mission was before them. To abandon it would be disgrace. They must escape from the French who were hanging upon their rear to fall upon and chastise the St. Francis Indians. Like the ten thousand
* It must be borne in mind that several hundred of the frontier settlers of New Hampshire had at different times been killed by the savages, and the people of our State very naturally hated this St. Francis friar. The Puritan writers of that day gave him a very poor character.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
under Xenophon they must fly before one enemy to fight and con- quer another.
Lieutenant McMullen was dispatched across the country for supplies, and then, as related by an early historian, like Charles XII dashing across the marshes of the Baltic, the rangers hurried through the forest. For nine days they marched in a spruce bog. Many a mile it was covered a foot deep with water. At the first dawn they would breakfast, and long before the sun had chased the shadows from the woods were far on their way. They scarcely halted for dinner, but ate as they marched. When the twilight faded and the stars came out, they would stop and construct a kind of hammock to secure them from the water, and lay down to sleep in their pole and bough beds, rocked by the winds that sighed and soughed through the evergreen spruces.
The fifth day Captain Williams was accidentally burnt with gunpowder, and returned with the sick and hurt. The little party, reduced to one hundred and forty-two men, now pushed on with vigor, and in five days came to a river fifteen miles from the St. Francis. It was several rods in breadth, and flowed with a strong swift current. A raft could not be pushed across it, and the men must struggle through by fording. The tallest were placed up stream, and holding by each other that rope of human beings, writhing and swerving in the rushing torrent, toiled across. The remaining distance was good marching ground, and on the evening of the twenty-second day, a scout having climbed a large hemlock, discovered the church spire of the village gleam- ing through the tree tops.
Rogers writes in his journal that he ordered the rangers to encamp and refresh themselves, and at eight o'clock, taking with him two officers, he reconnoitered the town. He found the Indians celebrating a wedding. There was feasting on the village green. The old forest-arched canopy resounded to the merry song. The sprightly dancers with jokes and laughter kept time with nimble feet to the wild music of an Indian drum, blending with the quicker notes of a half-civilized violin. Like the exultant Trojans, when they had drawn the wooden horse within their walls, they seemed to celebrate their own destruction.
At two o'clock in the morning Rogers says he returned to his
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RETRIBUTION AT LAST.
camp, that he found it buried in slumber, and that before waking his command he sat down a moment to rest. The fires of the village had gone out; the shouts of the Indian revellers had died away, and not a footfall disturbed the silence. To him the moment was impressive and awful. He could almost hear the solitude creep- ing down the St. Francis river, only broken by the water kissing the pebbly shore, or by the mournful howling of the Indian dog upon the bank, sending his monotonous cry after the cloud shad- ows, as they flitted like phantoms over the starlit water.
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But duty forbade delay. Rousing his men at three A. M., he advanced within five hundred yards of the village. Ordering the rangers to halt and lighten their packs, he formed them for action. In the manner of true Indian warriors they wait for the most favorable moment. The stars glimmer less brightly through the trees, and the rosy dawn of morning tinges the eastern sky. It was the time when deep sleep bound the limbs of the tired Indian fastest, when Rogers gave the signal, and those hundred and forty- two men, in three divisions, rushed forward with horrid yells, hurled the blazing fire-brands into the dwellings, and shot down alike men, women, and children.
The lurid glare of the blazing habitations showed more than six hundred human scalps, with hair fluttering in the fire-made breeze, stretched upon poles-savage trophies of the border war. The sight filled the men with rage, and they rushed with redoubled fury to the slaughter. Some of the Indians, leaving their dwel- lings, fled to the river and leaped into their canoes. The rangers pursued, sank their frail craft and shot or drowned those endeav- oring to escape. Others concealed themselves in the cellars and lofts of their dwellings and preferred to perish in the flames. Two of the strongest rangers, Bradley and Farrington, came to the door of the wigwam where the wedding had taken place. They threw themselves violently against it, burst it from its hinges, and Bradley fell headlong among the sleeping inmates. The Indians were filled with consternation, but seizing their arms fought brave- ly for a few moments, when the rangers pouring in overpowered and slew them .* Rogers writes that the first beams of the morn-
* History of Concord, N. H., 194.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
ing sun pierced the mingled smoke and fog that rolled slowly down the valley of the St. Francis; that the spire of the blazing church glistened for the last time in the bright sunlight, then, tottering for an instant, fell with a loud crash, the bell uttering a mournful peal-the last sad requiem over the doomed village of St. Francis.
At seven o'clock in the morning the work was done. Like Ilium, the Indian hamlet smoked to the ground. Two hundred Indians lay half consumed in the embers of their dwellings, or stained the noble river with their blood. Of all the inhabitants but twenty women and children were alive. Retaining five of these as guides, Rogers suffered the remaining fifteen to depart .*
Only one of his men had fallen and but 'five or six were wounded. Five English captives who had been sometime with the Indians escaped during the fight. They reported that three hundred French and Indians had encamped the previous night four miles down the river, and were already moving to the scene of action.
Rogers had retreated before them to fall like a thunderbolt upon the St. Francis, had accomplished his purpose, and with the enemy more than double his number still following him like a blood-hound, must now plunge into an unbroken wilderness. Ordering his men to secure the small quantity of corn which they found in three remaining outbuildings, for there was no other provision, he began to retreat. As the forest closed around the rangers, hiding the smoking ruins from their view, the shouts of the enemy coming rapidly up quickened their flying footsteps.
* We have not been able to learn with certainty the fate of the St. Francis friar. It is probable, however, that he made good his escape.
CHAPTER XII.
THE RETREAT AND ITS HORRORS, THE CAMP ON THE COOS INTERVAL UNDER THE SHADOW OF MIGHTY MOOSILAUKE, CONCLUDING WITH A BEAUTIFUL AND GOLDEN TRADITION, THAT HAS BEEN REPEATED AROUND THE FARMER'S FIRESIDE FOR A HUNDRED YEARS.
MARSHAL JUNOT defeated and dispersed the Turkish army at Nazareth, and Mount Tabor saw the Musselmen flying before the gallant Kleber; yet famine and the plague drove Napoleon's brave soldiers from Palestine. So the hardy rangers, who never quailed before any human foe, now met in the deep forest an enemy more terrible than the half-blood Frenchman or the maddened savage. True it was that three hundred of the lat- ter still hung like ravenous wolves upon their trail, joining addi- tional horrors to ghostly famine. Yet the starving rangers hurried on through the pathless woods, over rugged mountains, with no landmarks to guide them, while the old forest roared and rocked in the cold October storm. Nor did they always advance. Their guides were treacherous. For three days, as the record reads, they wandered about in an almost interminable swamp. The fourth day they returned on their retreat so much that they struck the trail of the enemy that was following them.
The French and Indians were well provisioned. The rangers were worn down; famine preyed upon their emaciated forms, and at any moment they were in danger of falling into the deadly am- buscade. There was but one hope. The famishing party divided itself into nine small companies, each with a leader .* It was
* Rogers led one of the parties; Lieuts. Philips, Campbell, Cargill, and Far- rington, Ensign Avery, Sergeant Evens, and Dunbar and Turner, led the others.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
agreed that the one which should encounter the enemy should, like a forlorn hope, fight till the last moment, while the others, warned by the contest, might escape. Having separated, in half an hour volley after volley told that one of the companies was sacrificing itself for its companions .* Hurrying forward to meet death in a more terrible form, they left their brave comrades to waste away in the damp mosses of the swamp.
Memphremagog lake, sparkling like a gem in its forest setting, saw them boiling and eating their powder-horns and shot-pouches. When these failed their moccasins furnished another tough morsel, from which they gathered strength to drag on with bleeding feet through the wilderness.
At the end of the eighteenth day one party struck the Con- necticut river at upper Coos, mistaking it for lower Coos. Bradley, he who was so brave in the fight at St. Francis, was among them. He was a native of Concord. He said if he was in full strength he should be in his father's house in three days. He took a point of compass which at lower Coos would have brought him to the Merrimack, but in fact led directly over the White mountains. A ranger and a mulatto man accompanied him. The next year a party of hunters found in one of the deep mountain gorges a man's bones; by them were three half-burned brands piled together. Silver brooches and wampum lay scattered about-plunder from the St. Francis-while a leather ribbon, such as Bradley wore, bound the long black hair to the whitening skull. No arms were by him and no signs of companions.t
The remainder of the company made a hurried march down the river, for the current was too wild for rafts. Where the Ammonoosuc, coming from the south, and seeming to beat back the dark waters of the Connecticut as they surge through the "Narrows," Rogers had appointed a rendezvous. Here they ex- pected to find relief. General Amherst had indeed dispatched
* It was the party led by Ensign Avery which was overtaken by the enemy. Besides those killed, seven of his men were taken prisoners, but two of them escaped. Lieut. George Campbell's party, and Sergeant Evens' party saved their lives by eating Avery's dead soldiers, who had sacrificed themselves that the others might escape. This act of Ensign Avery's men, yielding up their lives that the others might live, is one of the most noble recorded in history.
t Tradition has it that Bradley started with two or three men, but they never reached home. It is supposed they all perished with hunger and cold amid the snow's of the wilderness .- History of Concord, 194.
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ACT OF A COWARD,
Lieutenant Stevens with provisions, directing him to remain till the rangers arrived, but reckless of his duty he returned at tlie end of two days, carrying everything with him. He had been gone but a short time when the first party came upon the interval and found his camp-fires still burning. They discharged their muskets to bring him back. He heard them, and thinking it was the enemy, hurried on the faster. Despairing, they eat their last morsel of food, and then laid down in Stevens' deserted camp and awaited their fate.
That night Lieutenant Philips brought in his party. Philips was a half-blood Indian, his mother being a wild Mohawk. The Earl of Loudon commissioned him lieutenant, and throughout the whole seven years' war he was a gallant leader of the rangers. Yet his party suffered terribly. Day after day, as the story is told by himself, they continued to retreat without a morsel of food. As they reeled through the woods it seemed as if the dry limbs of the trees shrieking in the wind was the voice of ghostly famine croak- ing over them like the boding owl of destruction. When their emaciated forms seemed just ready to sink down they determined to kill a St. Francis prisoner who was with them. A draft of human blood and a feast of human flesh, or death-this was the dreadful alternative. But that afternoon they killed a muskrat, which they divided amongst themselves, and human life was spared .*
Sergeant Evens, another leader, came in with his company on the following morning. Their sufferings if possible were even more terrible. The sergeant used to tell how for days and weeks they wandered through the woods. Birch bark, gnawed with ravenous teeth, and roots dug with long bony fingers, only kept away death. In the cold swamp, through which they staggered delirious, they stumbled upon the mangled remains of their slain companions. Almost every man, as if he were a ravenous beast, gorged himself upon human flesh. Evens' feelings revolted and he refused to eat. But his soldiers laid in a supply, and a few nights afterwards, when the chills of death seemed creeping over
* Philips did not remain long on the Coos intervals. He took the old Indian trail up the Oliverian, reached the Asquamchumauke, and followed down the river home to Concord, N. HI .- History of Concord, 200,
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him, he took a steak of his comrades' flesh from the knapsack of a sleeping ranger, roasted it upon the coals, and years afterwards pronounced it " the sweetest morsel he ever tasted."
Lieutenant George Campbell, who led another company, said that his men suffered severely. For four days not a particle of food passed their lips. Without a guide and ignorant of the coun- try, they wandered they knew not whither, like a ship upon a stormy ocean, without compass or star to direct. The weak in mind were driven mad by despair and suffering; the weak in body laid down and died. Eating leather straps and the covers of car- touch boxes, tough food, did not appease the dire hunger that con- sumed them. At length their resources were all gone, and not a ray of hope gleamed through the bars of their forest prison. Death had laid his fearful grasp upon them, and it seemed as if the last man must perish. October 28th but half the party were alive. A few hours more and these must die. But a ghastly relief came to them when they least expected it. A ranger cross- ing a stream slipped from a log. . His foot disturbed the leafy cov- ering that had fallen upon the water and he caught sight of some human bodies scalped and horribly mutilated. The furious hunger of these famishing men knew no restraint; they did not even wait for a fire with which to prepare their ghastly banquet, but ate like beasts of prey. Then, collecting carefully the remnants, they pursued their journey. .
At this time Rogers also came with his party. During the whole retreat he had shown himself a hero, and now when his men were perishing he constructed a rude raft, and with Captain Ogden and an Indian boy started to float down to Number Four and obtain supplies. The famishing rangers saw him disappear around a long sweeping bend of the river, and then lay down to wait ten days, at the end of which he had promised to return. The hours went slowly by-a week passed-and those men sat in the smoke of their fires and listened to the wind sighing about their camp. As their forms grew more attenuated, their faces more haggard, and their eyes and cheeks more sunken, they would reel into the woods to gather roots and bark, coarse food to keep the last spark of life from going out.
Across the open meadow was a lofty mountain, and the early
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MOOSILAUKE.
snows of autumn glistened in the sunlight upon its summit. Old settlers tell the story how two of the rangers, one of them by name Robert Pomeroy, had hunted on the streams beyond that mountain in bygone days. With their companions dying around them and death staring them in the face they resolved to cross it and go home. One night, when the rest of the band were asleep, they took from a knapsack a human head, cut off pieces, roasted them upon the coals, satisfied their hunger, and at the earliest dawn departed .*
Late in the afternoon they were standing upon the summit of Moosilauke mountain. They stopped to rest and to gaze upon the wildest scene that ever met their eyes. Mountains like mole hills were scattered through the great northern country. To the east, peak after peak shot thousands of feet into the clear ether. Look- ing south, the mountain upon which they stood seemed the wild head of the deep wilderness. Scattered through it were gleaming rivers, flashing ponds and silver lakes, while at its foot, a hundred miles distant, a bright line on the horizon showed where the blue sea was dashing. Westward, range after range of lofty wooded mountains stretched far away, like the rolling billows of a tempest tossed ocean. And then all the forest for a hundred miles around was one glorious blaze of brilliant colors. Every autumn hue and tint imaginable shone resplendent, as though the hand of the Divine Artist had woven together myriads of gorgeous rainbows with which to mantle this hitherto unseen solitude.
Half an hour later they saw the sun sink slowly down and gild every range of mountains with golden rays of glory. The clouds that lay along the horizon sparkled in roseate tints, while the horizon itself, appearing like a golden plain in continuation of the earth, changed soon, first to green, and then to a cold ashen gray. As the crescent moon, at first pale but with growing brightness, together with a single star of large magnitude, appeared over the summits of the snowy eastern mountains, Pomeroy, be-
* David Evens said that one night, while the men of his party were asleep in the camp, his own cravings for food were so unsupportable that he awoke from sleep, and seeing a large knapsack belonging to one of his comrades, opened it in hopes to find something to satisfy his hunger; that he found in it three human heads; that he cut a piece from one of them, and broiled and ate it, while the men continued to sleep. But he said he would sooner die of hunger than do the like again. He observed that when their distresses were greatest they hardly deserved the name of human beings .- History of Concord, 195.
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