USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 9
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Descending from the eminence that commanded such an en- chanting scene, and was also so serviceable in showing the natural facilities of the country, they selected the places for the forts and located the townships. This done, and their provisions being nearly spent, they hurried back to their canoes and floated rapidly down stream through the woods to the settlements.
They gave so flattering an account of the beauty, richness, and fertility of the intervals that four hundred men were immediately enlisted to settle this paradise of New England. Active prepara- tions for the journey to this upper country were commenced, and another autumn bid fair to have seen two forts gleaming with . bayonets on the banks of the Connecticut.
But how illusory are the plans of men. The Indian's had watched the acts of the committee with a jealous eye. Like men of common sense, they judged the loss of their planting grounds would be a serious evil. To counteract it and to preserve their lands they commenced what was to themselves an entertaining series of hostilities-but which meant death or captivity for the poor whites. We shall now endeavor to show how the migratory would-be English colonists were for a time thwarted, and that part of our pleasant land of the Pemigewassetts now called War- ren hindered from being settled.
CHAPTER III.
GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF A HUNTING PARTY ON THE ASQUAMCHUM- AUKE, HOW TWO YOUNG MEN WERE CAPTIVATED IN THE MOST CAPTIVATING MANNER, CONCLUDING WITH HOW ONE GOT HIS BACK TICKLED WITH THE OIL OF BIRCH, WHILE THE OTHER DID NOT-MUCH TO THE DELIGHT OF ALL CONCERNED.
THE Indian runner must have been fleet-footed who bore the news of the committee's acts at the Coos intervals to the village of the St. Francis. Like a shower of toads, an old-fashioned, time-out-of-mind war party, under the generalship of Acteon,* some say Francis Titagaw, others the young chief, Peer, was hop- ping over the logs and stealing through the thickets which lined the banks of the Asquamchumauke almost as soon as the commit- tee had gone in their canoes down the Merrimack.
Now it so happened that some of those daring spirits who always delight to live upon the frontier, and are never contented unless, like their red-skin cousins, they were strolling through the woods whether it paid or not, were trapping upon the Asquam- chumauke, and along a little black mountain stream in the present town of Romney. They were brave fellows every one of them, and their names, as is known to all who have read the oft-told story, were William and John Stark, David Stinson, and Amos Eastman.
They had come up from their homes at Amoskeag falls, and had worked most industriously at trapping. They had sable,
* Acteon was a Nipmuck Indian, and married an Arosagunticook woman. He was sometimes called Capt. Moses. He was at one time an associate with Wahowa, and was the same Indian that in his old age sometimes made his home with Colonel Obadiah Clement.
Peer was a young chief.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
marten, mink, and beaver traps, set on three long ranges or "lines," one up Stinson brook to the head waters of the Pemige- wassett, another up the "South Branch" to the water shed of the Mascoma, and a third far up the Asquamchumauke to Moosil- auke mountain. They had been very successful in their avocation, and had gathered furs amounting to more than five hundred and sixty pounds in value .* But the long days had come; corn-fields and potato-patches must be improved, and so they made ready to return. Another circumstance that quickened their departure was the discovery of fresh, moccasined footprints on the Indian trail.
All day long they had worked diligently in gathering their traps, and on the morrow they were to break up their camp. It was nearly evening. The long shadows began to steal across the water, and the last rays of the setting sun were streaming full upon the face of craggy Rattlesnake mountain, when John Stark, who was stooping to take a steel trap from the water, was startled by a sharp hiss. Jumping up he saw the Indians, and the muzzles of half a dozen muskets, staring at him within three feet of his head, told him that escape was hopeless.
That night he lay bound among his captors, and in the morn- ing was early roused to proceed down the river, where they were to lay in ambush for the rest of the hunters. The latter had guessed the cause of Stark's absence, and at the earliest dawn packed their furs, traps, and camp equipage into their canoe and started. Eastman was upon the shore, while William Stark and Stinson guided the frail craft as it floated down in the rapid cur- rent. The Indians easily captured the former, and then bid Stark hail those in the canoe, and invite them to come on shore. Stark complied so far as to tell them to pull to the opposite bank and then run for their lives, as the Indians had got him and would have them too unless they were quick in getting away.
Curses and blows fell thick upon the head of the dutiful but unfrightened hunter, and then the Indians leveled their muskets to fire upon the retreating men. "Not yet, my friends," said the belabored Stark, as he struck up their guns at the moment of dis- charge. For this he got another shower of kicks and cuffs, and when a second time they attempted to fire he again endeavored to
* Potter's Hist. of Manchester, 277.
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RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.
stop them, but not so successfully as before. Stinson was killed in the act of leaping upon the shore, and fell backward, his blood staining the clear water. The paddle in the hand of William Stark was shivered with bullets, but leaping from the canoe like a deer he took to the woods and escaped .*
The Indians in their usually polite and gentlemanly manner now wished for a slight memorial of young Stinson to take to St. Francis. They crossed the stream, dragged his body ashore, dex- terously took off his scalp, and after giving John Stark a sound beating for his daring interference, told the two captives to take up what was to them a not very agreeable march to the happy land of Canada.
The first night they camped on the Coos intervals, close by the Connecticut. As he lay bound between two of his captors John Stark could hear the murmuring of the river and see its dark waters gleaming in the moonlight, as the full orb rose slowly up over the bow-backed summit of Moosilauke mountain.
It was a long march up the Connecticut, across the highlands, and down the sluggish St. Francis river to the St. Lawrence. Meanwhile the Indians determined that the captives should run the gauntlet when they reached the village, and so to beguile the way they taught Eastman and Stark a sentence in Indian, which they should recite during that interesting ceremony, the tenor of which was: " I'll beat all your young men!"
On their arrival two long lines of warriors were formed, and between them the captives were to run. Each warrior had a club, with the right to beat the prisoner as much as he chose as he passed along. To each of the runners the Indians gave a pole about six feet in length upon the end of which was stretched the skin of some animal. Upon Stark's was a loon skin. Eastman's turn came first. When the young Indians heard him cry out, "I'll beat all your young men !" they cudgelled him most unmercifully, and he came out of the lines more dead than alive. But young Stark was made of different mettle. He marched up to the start-
* When the news of the capture of Eastman and Stark reached Rumford, a party was raised, who proceeded to Baker river, found and buried the body of Stinson in the woods, and brought home one of the paddles of the canoe, which was pierced with several shot holes. It was possessed a long time by the Virgin family.
Jacob Hoyt, Esq., says that in this party were Phineas Virgin, Joseph Eastman (called deacon), and Moses Eastman .- Hist. of Concord, 193.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
ing point with firm step, astonished the braves with the cry, " I'll kiss all your young women!" and then bounded into the lines. He knocked down the first Indian he met, and continued to lay about him with so much vigor that the astonished natives suffered him to pass through with scarcely a blow.
The old men were pleased at the consternation of their young warriors, and so greatly admired the bravery of Stark that they wished to adopt him as their chief. But the hero of Bennington had no notion of passing his life in the wilds of Canada, and plainly told them so. Afterwards they bid him hoe corn. He complied so far as to cut it up by the roots and then throw his hoe into the river, declaring that such work was fit only for squaws. This only heightened their admiration for him, and they did not ask him to do any more work.
Late in the autumn Captain Stevens, of Number Four, and Mr. Wheelwright, of Boston, went to St. Francis to redeem the prisoners. For Eastman they paid a ransom of sixty dollars, for Stark one hundred and three dollars, showing how much higher they prized the courage of the latter above the timidity of the former.
They returned home by Lake Champlain and Number Four- Eastman to lead the life of an industrious farmer, Stark to plan and execute new hunting or trapping excursions, to procure means to pay his ransom, or to serve as guide through the wilderness he had explored, all of which disciplined him for achieving those immortal deeds in the old French war and the Revolution. We hear of him the next summer down in the wilds of Maine, trap- ping on the Androscoggin ; but previous to this he was pilot for a large party which made one more attempt to explore the north country, that historical land containing our mountain hamlet- Warren.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW THE SALVAGES, SABATIS AND CHRISTO, STOLE TWO NEGROES FROM THE SETTLEMENT AT CANTERBURY, AND THE EXCITE- MENT IT CAUSED ; TOGETHER WITH A GRAND RESULT BEFORE HINTED AT.
THE capture of the hunters and the murder of Stinson in the Pemigewassett country caused the New Hampshire people considerable alarm, and communicated in fact a little palpitation of the heart to the Governor himself. But, like any other nine days' wonder, it soon died away. Yet quiet only reigned for a moment, and then the excitement commenced again.
There were two big, burly savages, who sometimes resided at St. Francis, but more often on the head waters of the Merrimack. Their names were Sabatis and Christo. Like most of the Indians of that degenerate Indian time they would get drunk, and then would boast of their wicked deeds done in the wars. They were a source of terror to the women and children, and many a time it was whispered at night when the family was gathered around the huge old-fashioned fire-place, where the burning logs were glow- ing, how these men, stealing from the northern solitudes, had buried their tomahawks in the settlers' heads; and how Sabatis, sleeping on the hearth as he was wont, would start and groan and scream, as he said his victims did. Yet the settlers treated them kindly, and for some time they shared the hospitality of two men, Miles and Lindsey.
Now it chanced that two negroes were living in Canterbury, the property of said Miles and Lindsey, and our red-skins, not having the fear of the law before their eyes, and never having
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HISTORY OF WARREN. 1
heard the teachings of certain abolitionists who lived at a later day-how wicked it was to hold black chattels in bondage-at once experienced a strong desire to appropriate said chattels to their own use. Accordingly, like other men-stealers, they imme- diately began to form plans to "captivate" the negroes.
It was a bright summer morning. Men were repairing to the fields, and the two would-be kidnappers started for a stroll in the woods. They met the negroes, asked them to show a patlı that led to a certain locality, and the darkies, good honest souls, complied. When they were a considerable distance in the forest, the Indians seized the negroes, bound their hands, fettered their little heels, and then, instead of taking them down south, like kidnappers of a later day, they engineered the first underground railroad, and started their chattels towards Canada.
But one night, when they were far on the road, one of the negroes managed to unfetter himself, and in terse Indian nomen- clature, " him run fast," and escaped to his "ole massa" again.
But the other negro was not so fortunate. His Indian captors waded him across the "river of pines," the dark flowing Connec- ticut, feasted his keen ideality on the wild beauties of the rolling Green mountains, and delighted his vision with the sight of the sparkling Lake Champlain. Suffice it to say, the kidnapped dar- key saw the frowning battlements of Crown Point, where his humane captors sold him to a French officer. Whether he was redeemed or not is too insignificant a matter for this history to investigate.
But one great result grew out of these Indian depredations. Petitions were again circulated, signatures procured, and when the great and dignified Assembly of New Hampshire- character- ized then as now more by its size and numbers than by its ability -met, it was memorialized. The petitioners humbly prayed that a road might be marked, cut, and made, from the settlements on the Merrimack, through the Pemigewassett land to the Coos meadows. Then the forts would surely be built. Then bristling bayonets, gleaming over the bright waters of the Indian garden- land, would keep those self-same Indians who pretended to own the aforesaid garden- yearly planted with pumpkins, corn, and beans - from committing their depredations upon innocent, brave
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A HIGHWAY DECREED.
hunters, sable trappers, and white squatters, who of right roamed upon the frontier. In other words there should be a guard at the Coos meadows, who, ever vigilant, should make the settlers feel more secure in their new homes.
They never dreamed that the Indians could leave the Connec- ticut higher up, and come down through the notch by the Hay- stacks, where they could learn one lesson of stern grandeur from the Old Man of the Mountain; or that they could go round by the green hills of the west and, crossing the Connecticut below, reach the Asquamchumauke by Baker ponds. There were no such con- tingencies about it in their minds; the forts once built, they were safe.
But New Hampshire then, as now, was poor. It would be great expense to cut the road and maintain the forts. But after considering the matter for a long time, it was determined that so weighty a petition could not be disregarded; that the interests of the State demanded immediate action; and so they voted to assume the expense of cutting and making the road, and appointed a committee to survey and mark the same. That committee con- sisted of Zacheus Lovewell, of Dunstable, a relative of that Captain Lovewell who fought Paugus; John Tolford, of Chester, and Caleb Page, of Starkstown; and they hired John Stark to assist them. The Assembly sat in the winter of 1752-3, and in the spring following the committee commenced the work-looking toward the beloved land of this history.
CHAPTER V.
HOW THE ROAD WAS CUT THROUGH THE WOODS, AND HOW THE GREAT AND MIGHTY NATION OF AROSAGUNTICOOKS- COMPOSED OF ALL THE NIPMUCK TRIBES, INCLUDING OUR PEMIGEWASSETTS AND SOME OTHERS- SENT A FLAG OF TRUCE TO NUMBER FOUR. CONCLUDING WITH A GENERAL BACKOUT. -
THE committee were no laggards. The General Assembly of New Hampshire made a wise choice. They immediately ren- dezvoused at Amoskeag falls, the place where John Stark lived, and where daring spirits like Waternomee, Kancamagus, and Passaconaway congregated in times long ago. Philosophers say that associations form human character. Tell, amid his native mountains, was brave and daring; the inhabitant of India is cow- ardly and effeminate. Consequently, the great rocky barrier at Amoskeag, the white, foaming water, ever roaring, the northern granite mountains-all conspired to make such men as John Stark and his friends.
The committee hired sixteen men, and Stark was to pilot them through the Pemigewassett country to the Coos intervals. Robert Rogers, the most daring ranger of the old French war, was one of the number.
It was March 10th, 1753, when the surveying party left Amos- keag. The river was yet frozen over. Each man had a pair of snow-shoes on his feet. His blanket, twenty-five days' provision, and his cooking utensils, were strapped to his back. Half the party had guns. Almost all had axes or hatchets, and Caleb Page carried a compass and other materials suitable for making a plan of the survey.
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THE ROAD BLAZED TO COOS.
Thus equipped they proceeded up the river on the ice as far as Bakerstown, now Franklin, N. H. They stopped one night at the most northern settler's hut, and rested their weary limbs on the floor by the blazing hearth. On the bright ensuing morn, when the sun gleamed on the myriad diamond points of the frozen snow, and the red-crested woodpecker drummed a merry tune on the hollow beech-tree, they struck into the woods. Their route was now up the west bank of the Merrimack. A part of the com- pany would perform the day's march in the forenoon, construct the camp, cut the wood for the night fire, prepare and cook the provisions, and make everything as comfortable as possible for the tired road choppers and surveyors. At different points on the route they left a portion of their supplies, to be used on their return. The snow was four feet deep; yet they pushed on with- out faltering. Not a man lagged behind. One day, in what is now our good town of Wentworth, they started a moose. The whistling balls of half a dozen rifles, in sailors' phrase, "brought him to," and at evening, when night's shadows were creeping through the forest, the gleaming knives of nineteen hardy border- ers flashed before the campfire, as they carved out the choicest morsels and over them cracked their merry jokes. In fifteen days they had blazed a pathway through the wilderness, and were en- camped on the intervals at Coos.
They occupied six days in returning, and when they disbanded at Amoskeag on the 31st day of March, the great province of New Hampshire, with Benning Wentworth for Governor, was indebted to this indomitable surveying party in the sum of 6841. 5s. old tenor. Caleb Page got 221. extra for surveying, and John Stark more pay than his fellows, for additional work and services as guide.
But our mighty Arosagunticook, or St. Francis tribe of red- skins, heard of the act of the General Assembly of New Hamp- shire almost as soon as it was passed. Although they had no gov- ernor, they had a chief; if they had no legislature, they could sit smoking around the council-fire, and debate matters concerning their rude nation of eighteen hundred souls, in a manner more dignified and grave than even the Roman Senate; if they had no money to pay the expense of an expedition to the English settle-
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
ments, still, their resolve once determined upon, they could find daring, painted, tufted-headed desperadoes enough, to whom the pleasureable prospect- the excitement of burning buildings, groaning victims, sighing captives, and dangling scalp-locks- would be a sufficient inducement to undertake such enterprise.
With a little prompting from the French the war-council decided upon war. But, be it said to their credit, they had learned one principle of christian civilized warfare mentioned in the books that treat of the laws of nations. That was, before open hostili- ties were commenced in the usual ambuscade fashion, they deter- mined to notify the enemy. Accordingly in the winter of the passage of the act, even before our noted committee with its hardy surveying party had performed its labors, six Indians, (for In- dians in those days were as hardy as white men ) braved the chill winds of 'Magog lake, rustled the snow from the evergreen firs of the swamps, and with a flag of truce suddenly appeared at the fort in Number Four, now Charleston, N. H.
Captain Stevens, the commander received them in true military style, even as did Cyrus the younger the Queen of Silesia, only not quite so affectionately perhaps; or the great Hannibal, Scipio; or Bonaparte, Lord Wellington. They fared sumptuously upon the good viands within the log fort, dined upon hearty moose-beef and supped upon corn-cakes, washed down with sundry mugs of flip, made hissing-hot with the old-fashioned loggerhead, which was always kept at a white heat.
On the day following their arrival they stated their message. Their orator, drawing himself up full height, asserted their title to the corn patches and pumpkin fields at the long river of pines, which runs through the meadows, under the shadow of the snowy mountain, Moosilauke. " Our fathers," said he, "gave it to us. We have never sold it, never bargained it for the deadly fire- water. Why do you trespass upon it? Why wrongfully seek to drive us from our inheritance? Already have your armed men visited it. Already have forts been staked out upon it. We say now, desist ! Let not the English come to Cowass. If they do- sure as the heavens above the mountain peaks shall blush in the rosy morning, you shall have war, and it shall be a strong war! Like a wolf on your flocks we will rush on your wives and child-
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A HOSTILE FLAG OF TRUCE.
ren; like a hurricane uprooting the forest, we will pluck you from the soil!"
This message delivered, the Indians, jolly roisterers, managed to dispose of sundry other mugs of flip, heated in the before-men- tioned manner, cut numberless antics and capers around the rude fort, and then whooping a wild applause after their own peculiar style, all of which signified that they liked good rum, took their departure for the St. Lawrence.
Captain Stevens bolted and barred his fortress and posted a stronger guard that night, and the next day, finding that all was quiet, sent off a dispatch to Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, informing him of the remonstrance and declaration on the part of the Arosagunticooks.
The honorable governor heard the message with astonish- ment. Rather than the "tufted-headed salvages," should rush down upon the frontier settlers, as the wild clansmen of Scotland did upon merrie England, or as the Nipmucks who lived with their dear French friends had been accustomed to do for the past hun- dred years, the governor thought they had better be allowed to retain the garden-patch at "Cowas."
With great haste he sent a messenger to Governor Wentworth with the news, who, after considering it for some time with his council, came to the sage conclusion that whereas it was going to cost a large sum of money to make the road, and also as it was going to make the dire and dreadful "salvages" exceedingly wroth, and furthermore as there was a great prospect that a terri- ble war would shortly break out between France and England, they concluded to abandon the very plan that, in any event, was . so necessary for their protection. .
Thus the two forts were not built, the four hundred men never went to Coos, the bayonets never gleamed over the still water, and the tramp of the soldier-guard was never heard. The happy land of Warren also bid fair to have grown greener in her mountain solitudes, the white man's footstep to have awoke no echo, his cattle to have browsed in no valley, the bleat of his flocks to have · enlivened no hillside for the next half-century, had not an addi- tional train of circumstances, which we shall mention in our next chapter, just now commenced.
H
CHAPTER VI.
HOW SABATIS AND PLAUSAWA FARED IN THE HANDS OF PETER BOWEN, TOGETHER WITH THE MIRACULOUS OPENING OF THE JAIL, CONCLUDING WITH A CAPTIVATING ACCOUNT OF A WHOLE FAMILY, WHO WERE POLITELY INVITED TO GO TO CANADA BY THE GENTLE SALVAGES.
EVERY man admires courage. Marshal Ney, "the brav- est of the brave," was the envy of the world; but even his daring feats have many a time been equalled. Unfortunately, the heroes acting on a more obscure stage, unlike the favored French, had no historians, and are consequently forgotten. We do not pretend that every savage is a hero; but many an early pioneer of New England can attest to deeds of fortitude and bravery that can scarcely find a parallel. King Philip, civilized, would have stood beside a Hannibal or an Alexander. Even our friend Sabatis, who stole the negroes, furnishes us with a notable instance of physical daring and moral heroism, or as a latter-day Yankee would express it, of cheek, of brass, of impudence, truly astounding.
That kidnapper, that " brave," who wheedled away the poor " darkies," the great and distinguished Sabatis, accompanied this time by a new friend-Plausawa by name-without even a blush on his red face, but with an assuming air, dared to walk into the highly peaceable and prosperous settlement of Canterbury, the very next June after stealing the negroes. Hunters and trappers, farmers, men from the woods, and men black from the " burnt- piece," with their wives and innocent children, were alike aston- . ished. When they had somewhat recovered from their surprise, they upbraided Sabatis with his treachery.
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