USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 8
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LOVEWELL'S FIGHT.
rocks and trees and fired upon the principal actor, killing him on the spot. This man was supposed to be the celebrated chief, Wahowa.
The fight was then renewed and continued with greater earnestness. Towards night John Chamberlin and Paugus both went down to the pond at the same moment to wash out their guns. They knew each other, agreed to finish washing, and to commence to load at the same time. In loading, Paugus got the advantage; his ball was so small as to roll down the barrel, while Chamberlin had to force his down with his rod. Paugus, seeing his advantage, quickly said, "Me kill you !" and took up his gun to prime. Chamberlin threw down his rod, and bringing the breech of his gun a smart blow upon the hard sand, brought it to his face and fired. Paugus fell pierced through the heart. Cham- berlin's gun, being worn from long use, primed itself, and the knowledge of this saved the bold hunter's life.
Then the battle gradually ceased, and at midnight all who were able began to retreat. Lovewell went into the fight with thirty-four men, but only fourteen ever lived to reach home. More Indians than English were killed, and a party of fifty, who went to this most terrible battle-field of Indian wars, found and buried Captain Lovewell and many of his brave soldiers who had died beside him. They also found and opened the grave of Paugus. After this the Indians resided no more at Pequawket.
King William's war closed soon after the opening of these in- teresting adventures, and then the wilderness-hereafter to be called Warren-was solitary enough for a score of years, being visited only by hunters and trappers, Englishmen and Indians, hostile and friendly by turns.
But in 1745 King George's war broke out, and then began another series of interesting adventures and great Indian cam- paigns, the history of which every son of our town of Warren ought to know, because it relates some of the great events which produced such happy results.
The first of these grand campaigns in our wild solitudes took place in "King George's War" shortly after the fall of Louisburg, the Dunkirk of America, in 1745, and when Benning Wentworth was the royal governor of New Hampshire. The French were
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
highly exasperated to think that their strong fortress had been captured by a few rough woodsmen under Colonel Pepperell, or as they felt, " Colonel Pepper-them-well," and they immediately resorted to their old method of warfare, to wit: to send a few of their very gentle "salvages," to "scrape" a slight acquaintance with the English borderers, and to form a lasting friendship by sealing it in a gentle effusion of blood.
Governor Wentworth and his wise counsellors had a sort of a presentiment, founded, like most other presentiments, on very logical premises, that such might be the case, and so sent a garrison to Captain Jeremiah Clough's fort, in Canterbury. But the In- dians, like deer, scented the fort a long distance, slyly hied down the Connecticut, and at the great meadow, now Walpole, kindly removed one William Phipps from all trouble in this world, taking only his scalp as a reward for their services, and then proceeding to upper Ashuelot, now Keene, there feloniously and wilfully and of malice aforethought committed the same outrage upon one James Fisher.
As no one pursued them to wreak revenge, the courage of the Frenchman's humane allies, our Nipmucks, greatly increased. That very season they went down the Merrimack on campaign number two. They did not trouble themselves to visit the fort at Canterbury, thinking it too bad to disturb the garrison there of its quiet and repose. Near Suncook they thought to relieve the monotony of their life by a little miscellaneous practice at target shooting. Accordingly they found a couple of suitable marks in the persons of James McQuade and John Burns, of Bedford, who had been to Pennacook, now Concord, to procure corn, and were returning home. McQuade was shot dead; but Burns, running zigzag, and the Indians not being able to shoot round a corner, escaped. The Indians were off to Canada before this great battle was reported.
When the news of this brilliant campaign reached Portsmouth it is said Governor Wentworth gnashed his teeth and stamped his foot. "How dared the haughty foe to pass the impregnable for- tress at Canterbury?" But he would meet them on their own ground, that is, in the woods. The order was given, a company of men was enlisted, and Captain John Goffe, of Harrytown, was
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KING GEORGE'S WAR.
detached by Colonel Blanchard to command the hazardous expedi- tion. His company of thirty-four men was selected from the large number who presented themselves. None were enrolled but such as were noted for courage and sagacity. The first of January they started up the Merrimack on a scout. How far they went we were never able to learn. Whether they proceeded as far as Coos is very doubtful. We cannot tell, though we wish we could, whether they even went as far as the forks of the Merrimack, where the golden salmon in the springs of olden time are said to have parted company with the shad; all we know is that they scouted valiantly all the long winter, with excellent success at- scouting; but not discovering even so much as one of the moccasin footprints of the enemy, April 6th, 1746, they disbanded. But the chiefs who led the renowned war parties in the campaigns of the previous season were heroes in the eyes of their own little Arosagunticook nation at home, and many a brave fellow who had rested on soft furs in his smoky wigwam all winter, now stimulated by an abundant supply of " French pap," was burning for deeds of glory.
Down through the wild Coos, about which the snowy moun- tains were gleaming, they came on the run. Over the highlands and down the Asquamchumauke they hurried, and on April 26th, 1746, like the crafty crusader, Bohemond, at the siege of Antioch, contrived to enter an open door of the garrison house in New Hopkinton, now minus the "New," and plain Hopkinton. They found all the people fast asleep, and easily took as prisoners Sam- uel Burbank, his sons Caleb and Jonathan, Daniel Wordwell, his wife, and three children, Benjamin, Thomas, and Mary.
This splendid victory was the crowning achievment of cam- paign number four. But a more blood-thirsty army, numbering three braves, took Timothy Brown and one Mr. Moffatt prisoners, at Lower Ashuelot, killed Seth Putnam at Number Four, and made campaign number five full as brilliant as any other.
New Hampshire was now in a terrible state of alarm. There was running and riding through all the wild border. The stout- est heart beat faster at the slightest noise after dark. Women turned pale at the shriek of the night hawk, or at the bark of the watch dog, and the naughtiest child in all the province, affrighted,
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
would cower still at its mother's side at the bare name of Indian. Captain Goffe, who was really a brave officer, of good ability, was ordered to the frontier with a company of fifty men. In a sorrowful yet firm letter, written from Pennacook to Governor Wentworth, he complained of the lurking ambuscade tactics of the Indian enemy. But although he could not see the wisdom of their movements, we of a later day can admire the skill and bravery of the Arosagunticooks as much as the oblique move- ments of Epaminondas, the new Greek fire, or the harrow-shaped columns which Napoleon hurled with such terrible effect on his foes.
Captain Goffe marched up the Merrimack, scouted along the Pemigewassett, looked up the Asquamchumauke, visited all the great " camping places " in the adjacent country, and returned by Lake Winnepisseogee. Not an Indian could he find. But Gov- ernor Wentworth was not to be thus thwarted by his very open enemy that skulked through the woods. A very brilliant idea took possession of his head. "To train in the troop has always been considered about as good as to join the church," and the worthy Governor thought it very proper to patronize the horse companies. So he ordered detachments of Captain Odlin's and Captain Hanson's cavalry to proceed immediately to relieve the forts at New Hopkinton and Canterbury. Prompt to respond, the brave mounted men went up the east bank of the Merrimack. Like a sweeping avalanche they rush on .. No common obstacle could check their swift, wild march. Without a particle of doubt the bright sun of the second morn would see them debouch from the forest and with their glittering trappings rein up their pranc- ing steeds, champing upon the impatient bit, before the massive gate of the strong fortress of Canterbury. But how uncertain are the things of this world. This brilliant expedition was des- tined to be a sad failure. The gallant troopers slackened their headlong course on the banks of the broad, deep Suncook river, the breadth of which to-day is about fifty long feet, and the dark depth about eighteen inches. No bridge spanned the surging flood, and to ford it was impossible. For hours they attempted to overcome this great barrier of nature, but in vain, and they were forced to return on their trail. At a meeting of the Legislature
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INDIAN INCURSIONS.
the Honorable Governor recommended that a bridge be constructed across the mighty river. But though the cavalry companies made a glorious return, yet that the Indians might be thoroughly con- quered, Captain Samuel Barr, of Londonderry, was also sent north with nineteen men. He was out nineteen days, and met with the same brilliant success as the other bold captains. As New Hampshire would in no manner be behind her sister colonies, a large number of soldiers were raised, to join a great expedition to Canada. In after years it was known as the Honorable Gov. Shirley's Quixotic success. As the expedition was a heavy body, and slow to start, the soldiers were sent into quarters on the shore of Lake Winnepisseogee, where they were to fight the Indians. But, instead of long marches through the pleasant solitudes they enjoyed themselves immensely, hunting and fishing on the shore of the beautiful lake-but not an Indian was seen.
Notwithstanding all this marshalling in battle array, the St. Francis braves, now including the entire Nipmuck nation and some other savages, gallantly accomplished campaign number six. June 27th they fought a successful battle at Rochester, with five Englishmen, who were at work in a field. The Indians sent out one of their number as a decoy, who drew the fire of the enemy. They then charged upon their white foe and drove them with the blunt points of their muskets into a deserted house. Here the white men long held them in check; but with true Indian cun- ning they unroofed the house and then coolly shot and killed Joseph Hurd, Joseph Richards, John Wentworth, and Gersham Downs. John Richards, the only survivor, was taken prisoner. Reclining for a short time upon a sloping bank, beneath a shady tree, in which forest songsters warbled war-pæans in honor of their glori- ous triumph, they recover their exhausted energies. Then, as the sun bids good-bye to the flashing zenith, the brave war-party rush upon another company of laborers in a field near by. Again glorious victory perches on their banners, but the spoils were less. All the English escaped except one poor lad named Jonathan Door. Long before night the Indians, with scalps and prisoners, returned to the fastnesses of the deep wood.
Madam Rumor, with her thousand tongues, circulated an account of this campaign in double-quick time.
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New Hampshire men again flew to arms, Capt. Nathaniel Drake, of Hampton, was ordered out, " with fifteen of his troopers to scout at and about Nottingham, fitted with their horses for fourteen days." Capt. Andrew Todd, of Londonderry, with twenty-three men, flew to Canterbury. Capt. Daniel Ladd, of Exeter, with a company of foot, ranged the woods by Massabesic lake to Pennacook, and returning scouted across the country to Nottingham; as usual, though scouting valiantly, not an enemy was discovered.
By the first of August, Capt. Drake's brave troopers were at home again, having sweat themselves and horses terribly doing nothing. Capt. Todd had returned even before this, and Capt. Ladd had dismissed his men until August fifth.
August tenth the Indians came to Pennacook, but Capt. Ladd at the same time came also.
The Indians were keen enough to discover the fact, but Capt. Ladd did not, consequently the former grew very religious, and resolved not to fight, as it was the Sabbath. In this they did differently from many other great military peoples, who have improved this day for battle. The Indians retired into a deep black wood for solemn meditation. .
The following day, Monday, they were fresh for the contest. They made a snug little ambush on the path leading from Penna- cook to Hopkinton. It was about half a mile from the church which they did not attack the previous day. When a portion of Capt. Ladd's company came along, rather irregularly, the Indians gave them a warm welcome. Daniel Goodman had gone forward to fire at a hawk, which sat on a dry stub by the path. Obadiah Peters was resting under the rustling leaves of a poplar tree, while the rest of the party behind walked leisurely up. With the war- whoop ringing, and the echo of the musketry reverberating from the distant hills, the smoke curled slowly away through the trees, and showed five men, drenching the mossy hillside with their blood. Lieut. Jonathan Bradley, Samuel Bradley, John Luffkin, John Bean, and Obadiah Peters were dead; but the quick eye of the Lieutenant had caught sight of the Indians, and he killed, before he received his death wound, the only Indian that fell during this great war.
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MORE INDIAN CAMPAIGNS.
With their dead comrade buried, howling and yelling, with the scalps, and two prisoners, this brave wild war party of forty Arosagunticooks returned to Canada.
In the language of one of the first historians of the times, this campaign produced "dire consternation throughout all the province. New Hampshire armed herself in her might." She was deter- mined to defend herself. In the way she did it, she won an imper- ishable glory. Forts and block houses sprung up all along the frontier, a garrison was placed in each, and at the head of Little Bay, in the present town of Sanbornton, Fort Atkinson was built of rough stone, and strongly manned. If the Indians had only attacked one of these, there is no doubt but that a most gallant defence would have been made. But that was not the Indians' style; they did not care a rush for forts, blockhouses, or garrisons.
In the spring of 1747, they opened another brilliant campaign, the eighth. On the morning of May 10th, they fell upon two men at Suncook; one they killed and scalped, the other escaped. At night they fired upon four others, but, much to their chagrin, missed them. 'By this time the settlers had all got snugly inside the garrison house, and the Indians not believing anything was to be made by attacking it, very quietly decamped. A few days afterwards scouts pursued them, as usual, and with the usual success.
Campaign the ninth was disastrous to the Indians. They approached Pennacook, and this time a scout did actually discover them. But they were off like a smoke in a high wind, leaving all their vast military train, to wit: things stolen, provision bags, ropes for thé prisoners, and blankets, in the possession of the English.
Campaign the tenth was more successful. August 21st, they took the house of Charles McCoy, in Epsom, captured Mrs. McCoy, stole all the apples off a single tree that composed their orchard, burned the house, and then cleared for Canada by Coos interval and Lake Champlain. Away went the English scouts after them, with the same glorious success as ever.
Campaign eleventh was an attack on Hinsdale. They killed several, took a number of prisoners, and achieved a splendid vic- tory, without any scout to pursue them,
G
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
Campaign twelfth they grew so heroic, on account of previous success, that they even besieged Number Four, and somehow man- aged to take several prisoners.
These were the great campaigns of 1745-6-7. In 1748 there was a little skirmishing with the enemy's pickets. Several men were frightened, and possibly a few might have been hurt. But the treaty of Aix-la-chapelle put an end to the war, and the brave Arosagunticooks buried the tomahawk.
This border war was a source of great suffering to the English, as well as mortification. Many of their number had fallen, and many were pining in captivity. The Indians had the advantage in the whole contest. But one of their number had been killed, and they never had returned to Canada but once without a scalp or a captive. The Arosagunticooks knew well where to find the Eng- lish. The latter, brave as their painted enemy, looked in vain for Indians. Like the Persians advancing on the Hellespont, the In- dians were well acquainted with the country they had to pass. The English scouting parties, like the Greeks, dare not venture across the great wild solitudes of our beloved Pemigewassett land, which stretched between themselves and the home of their enemy. Captain Baker and Captain John Lovewell had fought the Indians valiantly on their own ground, and could Captain Goffe have been as successful in finding them he would have fought equally as well. But he and the other brave captains had wholly failed of meeting them, and consequently could not fight them, and they now retired to their farms with about as much glory, and feeling . about as well, as the noble lion in his lair stung half to death, while all his despicable enemies, the wasps, were uninjured.
CHAPTER II.
A BEAUTIFUL SOLITUDE; AND HOW THERE WAS AN ATTEMPT TO BUILD TWO FORTS ABOVE THE PEMIGEWASSETT COUNTRY, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
A few years now passed, and a deeper shade filled the solitudes-the wilds of the Asquamchumauke-or, as modern civilians delight to term it, Baker river, once the land of the Pem- igewassett Indians. True it is that down by the grass-grown intervals of Coos, where the Connecticut sweeps around the great oxbow, then up the Indian trail by the wild, roistering Oliverian brook, marauding parties of the French and Indians from St. Francis, Canada, occasionally travelled; but when they had gone back the solitudes grew grimmer, and every thing would have been still as chaos and old night, but for the lowing of the antlered moose and the howling of the wolf and panther.
This land of the Pemigewassetts, which included the little territory of Warren, together with the whole upper country once inhabited by the Coosucks, our solitudes, was now debateable ground, claimed both by the English and St. Francis Indians. Scouts and captives who had been there said it was a delightful region, and the old soldiers of Captain Baker descanted wonder- fully upon - its being a perfect paradise; and now that King George's war was over, New Hampshire men began to have extraordinary desires for obtaining it. Besides, it was a great strategic point, worth having if another war should arise; for the meadows of lower Coos had been a sort of a rendezvous for the Arosagunticook Indians, from which, in the wars just mentioned, they had sallied forth down either the Connecticut or Merrimack
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
rivers. Consequently the public mind was greatly roused, the attention of all was turned towards possessing this upper country, in the exact centre of which was our little mountain valley, War- ren, and a pleasant series of most entertaining adventures was carried on for the accomplishment of that purpose, as we shall endeavor most faithfully to show.
The first thing that happened, as we have just intimated, was an immense amount of talking. Then a petition, numerously signed, was presented to the General Assembly of New Hamp- shire. It prayed that a road might be surveyed and cut from Bakerstown, a settlement that had been pushed far up on the frontier, to the Coos intervals, and that two forts might be built, one on each side of the Connecticut, for the benefit of settlers and the protection of the lower country. The General Assembly was deeply interested, and the Governor and Council most favorably disposed. They had fretted and fumed through King George's war, and now they were ready and willing to do almost anything to keep back the dire and savage Arosagunticooks, and increase the number of settlements and subjects.
Numerous plans for settling this upper country, building and garrisoning forts, were presented. Finally in the winter of 1752, the following very nice one was agreed upon:
A tract of land on Connecticut river was to be laid out into five hundred suitable portions. It was then to be granted to five hundred brave men. The conditions of the grant were that they should pay a small quit-rent and should occupy the lands imme- diately.
Furthermore, two townships should be laid out, one on each side of the river. A regular garrison should be built in each of them. The latter should encompass fifteen or more acres of land, in a square or parallelogram form. A line should be drawn around their area, just as the ancients marked out their cities, and on it were to be built log houses, at considerable distances apart -and a log house was certainly to be erected at each corner. The spaces between the houses were to be filled up with a palisade of square timbers, making a wall so strong and high that the nimble Arosagunticooks should not be nimble enough to leap over it, even if they should be foolish enough to make the attempt.
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BUILDING AIR CASTLES.
In the centre of this great square, and upon a rising plat of ground, if such could be found, was to be built a strong and im- pregnable citadel, such as the Greeks and Persians were in the habit of building within their cities. Here should be the granary of the colony, and here should be the last refuge of the inhabitants, if they should be driven from the outer enclosure. Within hailing distance on each bank of the noble river, either fortification was to assist the other, in case of an emergency.
As an addenda to the above brilliant plan, a form of govern- ment was prescribed. Courts were to be established, and justice and equity were to be administered in all civil causes. That every thing might go smoothly, and that there might not be the least possible chance for jar or discord, the governor-general of these already renowned fortresses was to have the power to pro- claim martial law at any time, and to put every inhabitant under strict military discipline. The above plan having been matured and decided upon, a committee. was immediately chosen to carry it into effect. This committee was composed of resolute and ener- getic men. They quickly made all necessary arrangments. Part- ings were hastily taken with kind friends and families, for it was a hazardous enterprise upon which they were entering, and each hurried to the rendezvous at Bakerstown, from which place they were to make the desperate attempt to penetrate the dark soli- tudes of the to them hitherto unexplored north.
It was a bright day when they set out. Old Winter had just taken up his march to the double-quick-time tune of " The hot sun's a coming," and all nature was bursting into life. On the trees the young leaves were expanding, and the little wild-flowers springing up among the gnarled roots lent a delicious fragrance to the air. The birds carolled in the branches, making merry music to cheer the woodsmen, or rather the committee-men, as they pushed their canoes up the Merrimack, toted them round the falls of the Pemigewassett, and with setting poles drove them up the "rips" of the Asquamchumauke.
Suffice it to say, that they must have left them in the shoal head waters of the stream and then toiled slowly through the woods by the old Indian trail across our valley to the Connecticut.
Here they rested themselves, as men naturally would, looked
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over the land on the eastern bank of the broad stream, and then, crossing to the western shore, ascended the rocky bluff to obtain a better view of the country. Although rough woodsmen, they could not have been insensible to the magnificence of the scene. At their feet the Connecticut wound like a band of silver through a seeming garden. Noble elms grew upon the river banks. Be- neath their shade the wild deer sported and with their mottled fawns beside them cropped the luxuriant herbage. A mighty forest just clothing itself in young verdure covered the lesser hills of New Hampshire, while far in the distance the great peaks of the Haystacks shot up into the transparent ether. To the south, the long, swelling summit of Moosilauke, still flecked with snow- fields, lay mirroring itself in the blue heaven. They also noted where the streams came down from the highlands and entered the river; where lay the broadest and richest intervals, and where the rising plats of ground afforded the best sites for their forts.
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