For our Boys & Girls

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 475, 28 May 1890, Page 5

For our Boys & Girls

Loveweil’s Fight.

EDITED BY HRS FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. [COPYRIGHT.] [All Rights Reserved.]

A NARRATIVE OF EARLY INDIAN WARFARE IN NEW ENGLAND. At the beginning of the last century the New England colonies were entering, as they hoped, on a season of vepose and peace after the great French and Indian war that had tormented them for more then ten years. Their hope was disappointed, for a new war was soon kindled between France and England, and the American colonies of the two powers were forced to take the consequences. For twelve years more the borders of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts were harried by war parties from Canada, till in 1713 the. Peace of Utrecht seemed to end their miseries. A few tranquil years followed, till, in 1722, the Indians of the Kennebec, the Saco, and the Penobscot, provoked by wrongs and instigated by emissaries from Canada, fell again upon the border settlements, and a three years’ conflict ensued, sometimes known in its day as ‘Lovewell’s War.’ It took this name from an incident which was long as famous in the traditions of Lew England as Chevy Chase in those of the Scottish border. Out of the heart of the White Mountains springs the River Saco, brawling among rocks down the great gorge of the Crawford Notch, fed by the foaming cascades that leap from the crags of Mount Webster; then winding through the forests and intervals of Conway ; then circling northward by the village of Fryeburg in devious wanderings among meadows, woods, and mountains, and then turning westward and southward to join the sea. On the banks of this erratic stream lived the Abenaki tribe known as the Sokokis. When the country was first visited by white men most of these Indians lived near the falls of the river, not far from its mouth. They retired before the English settlers and either joined their kindred in Maine or migrated to St. Francis and other Abenaki settlements in Canada. But a Sokoki band called Pigwackets, or Pequawkets, still kept its place on the upper waters of the river, at a spot within'the present town of Fryeburg. Except a much smaller band of their near relatives on Lake Ossipee, they were at this time the only human tenants of a wilderness many thousand square miles in extent. Their position made them difficult of access, and the forest and the river were well stocked with moose, deer, bear, beaver, otter, lynx, mink, and marten. In this, their happy hunting ground, the Pequawkets thought themselves safe; and they would have been so for a time had they not espoused the quarrel of their neighbours, the Norridgewocks, and made murderous raids against the English borders, under their war chief Paugus. Not far from where their wigwams stood, clustered in a bend of the Saco, lay the small lake now called Lovewell’s Pond. It owes its name to John Lovewell, of Dunstable, a Massachusetts village on the New Hampshire line. His father, the owner of a fortified house in Dunstable, had been a soldier in Phillip’s war, and had taken part in the famous Narragansett Swamp fight. The younger Lovewell, now about 33 years of age, lived with his wife Hannah and two or three children on a farm of 200 acres. The inventory of his effects, made after his death, includes five or six cattle, one mare, two steel traps with chains, a gun, two or three books, a feather bed, and a mattress, along with sundrv tools, pots, barrels, chests, tubs, and the like—the equipment, in Bhorb, of a decent frontier yeoman of the time. But being, like the tough veteran, his father, of a bold and adventurous disposition, he seems to have been less given to farming than to hunting and bush-fighting. Dunstable was attacked by Indians in the autumn of 1724, and two men were carried off; on which ten o.thers went in pursuit, bub fell into an ambush, where seven or more of them were killed; Lovewell’s brothar-in-law, Josiah Farwell, being one of those who escaped. Soon after this a petition styled a ‘humble memorial’ was laid before the House of Representatives ab Boston. It declares that in order * to kill and destroy the Indian enemy’ the petitioners and forty or fifty others are ready to spend one whole year in hunting them, ‘ provided they can meet with encouragement suitable.’ The signatures are those of John Lovewell, Josiah Farwell, and Jonathan Robbins, all of Dunstable, the first name being well written and the other two after asomewhat cramped andawkward fashion. The Representatives accepted the proposal and voted to give each adventurer two shillings and sixpence a day, then equal in Massachusetts currency to about one English shilling, out of which he was to maintain himself. The men were in addition promised large rewards for the scalps of male adult Indians. A company of thirty was soon raised; Lovewell was chosen captain, Farwell lieutenant, and Robbins ensign. They set out toward the end of November and reappeared at Dunstable early in January, bringing one prisoner and one scalp. Toward the end of the month Lovewell set out again, this time with eighty-seven men, gathered from the villages of Dunstable, Groton, Lancaster, Haverhill, and Billerica. They ascended the frozen Mammae, passed Lake Winnepesauke, pushed nearly to the White Mountains, and encamped on a branch of the Upper Saco. Here they killed a moose, a timely piece of luck, for they were in danger of starvation, and Lovewell had been compelled by want of food to send back a good number of his men. The rest held their way, filing on snow-shoes through the death-like solitude that gave no sign of life except the light track of some squirrel on the snow and the brisk note of the hardy little chickadee, or black-capped titmouse, so familiar to the winter woods. Thus far the scouts had seen no human footprint; but on the 20th of February they found a lately abandoned wigwam, and, following the snow-shoe tracks that led from it, at length saw a spire of smoke rising out of the grey forest by the side of a frozen pond. The party lay close_ till 2 o’clock in the morning ; then cautiously approached, found two or three wigwams, surrounded them, and killed all the inmates, ten in number. They were warriors from

Canada on a winter raid against the borders. Lovewell and his men, it . will be seen, were much like hunters of wolves, catamounts, or other dangerous beasts, except that the chase of this fierce and wily human game demanded far more hardihood i and skill. They brought home the scalp 3 in triumph, together with the blankets and the new guns furnished to the slain warriors by their Canai dian friends ; and Lovewell began at once to gather men for another hunt. The busy season of the farmers was at hand, and volunteers came in less freely than before, At the middle of April, however, he had raised a band of forty-six, of whom he was the captain, witbFarwell and Robbins, his lieutenants. Though they were all regularly commissioned by the Governor they were leaders rather than commanders, for they and their men were neighbours or acquaintances on terms of entire social equality. Two more of the number require mention. One was Seth Wyman, of Woburn, the second ensign, and the other was Jonathan Frye, of Andover, the chaplain, a youth of 21, graduated at Harvard College in 1723, and now a student of theology. Chaplain though he was,he carried a gun, knife, and hatchet like the others, and not one of the party was more prompt to use them. They began their march on April 15. A day or two after one William Cummings, of Dunstable, became so disabled by the effects of a wound received from Indians some time before that he could nob keep on with the rest, and Lovewell sent him back in charge of a kinsman, thus reducing their number to forty-four. When they reached the west bank of Lake Ossipee Benjamin Kidder, of Nutfield, fell seriously ill. To leave him unguarded in a place so dangerous was not to be thought of. His comrades, therefore, built a small fort or palisaded cabin at the edge of the water, and here the sick man was left in care of the doctor, together with a guard of seven men, with their commander, Sergeant Woods. The rest, now reduced to thirty-four, continued their march through the forest northeastward toward Pequawkeb, while the savage heights of the White Mountains, still covered with snow, rose above the dismal, bare forest on their left.

They crossed the Saco just below the site of Fryeburg, and in the night a 3 they lay in the woods near the north end of Lovewell’s Fond the men on guard heard sounds like Indians prowling about them. At daybreak —it was Sunday, the Bth of May—as they stood bareheaded, listening to a prayer from the young chaplain, they heard the report of a gun, and soon after discovered an Indian on the shore of the pond at a considerable distance. Apparently he _ was shooting ducks, but Lovewell, suspecting a device to lure them into an ambuscade, asked the men whether they were for pushing forward or falling back, and with one voice they called upon him to lead them on. They were then in a piece of open pine woods traversed by a small brook. He ordered them to lay down their packs and advance with extreme caution. They had moved forward about a mile when they met an Indian coming toward them through the dense trees and bushes, He no sooner saw them than he fired ab the leading men. His gun was charged with small shot, but he was so near his mark that the effect was equal to that of a bullet, and he severely wounded Lovewell and a man named Whiting ; on which Seth Wyman shot him dead, and the chaplian and another man scalped him.

Lovewell, though believed to be mortally hurt, was still able to work, and the party fell back to the place where they had left their packs. The packs had disappeared, and suddenly, with frightful yells, the whole body of the Pequawkeb warriors rushed from their hiding places, firing as they came on. The survivors say that they were more than twice the number of the whites, which is probably an exaggeration, though their conduct, so unusual with Indians, in rushing forward instead of firing from their ambush, shows a remarkable confidence in their numerical strength. They no doubt expected to strike their enemies with a panic. Lovewell received another mortal wound, but he fired more than once on the Indians as he lay dying. His two lieutenants, Farwell and Robbins, were also badly hurt. Eight others fell, but the rest stood their ground and pushed the Indians so hard that they drove them back to cover with heavy loss. One man played the coward, Benjamin Hassell,of Dunstable, who ran off, escaped in the confusion, and made with his best speed for the fort at Lake Ossipee. The situation of the party was desperate, and nothing saved them from destruction bub the prompt action of their surviving officerr, only one of whom, Ensign Wyman, had escaped unhurt. It was probably under his protection that the men fell back steadily to the shore of the pond, which was only a few rods distant. Here the water protected their rear so that they could nob be surrounded ; and now followed one of the most obstinate and deadily bushfights in the annals of New England. It was about 10 o’clock when the firing began, and it lasted until night. The Indians had the greatest agility and skill in hiding and sheltering themselves, and the whites the greater steadiness and coolness in using their guns. They fought in the shade, for the forest was dense ; and all alike covered themselves as they best could behind trees, bushes, or fallen bunks, where each man crouched with eyes and mind intent, firing whenever he saw, or thought he 3aw, the head, limbs, or body of an enemy exposed to sight for an instant. The Indians howled like wolves, yelled like enraged caugars, and made the forest ring with their whoops, while the whites replied with shouts and cheers. At one time the Indians ceased firing and drew back among the trees and undergrowth, where, by the noise they made, they seemed to be holding a ‘ powwow ’ or incantation to procure victory ; but the keen and fearless Seth Wyman crept up among the bushes, shot the chief conjurer, and broke up the meeting. About the middle of the afternoon young Frye received a mortal wound. Unable to fight longer, he lay in his blood, praying from time to time for his comrades in a faint bub audible voice.

Solomon Keyes, of Billerica, received two wounds, but fought on till a third shot struck him. He then crawled up to Wyman in the heat of the fighb and told him that he was a dead man, bub the Indians should not get his scalp if he could help it. Creeping along the sandy edge of the pond, he chanced to find a stranded canoe, pushed it afloat, rolled himself into it, and drifted away before the wind.

Soon after sunset the Indians drew off and left the field to their enemies, living and dead, not even stopping to scalp the fallen—a remarkable proof of the completeness of their discomfiture. Exhausted with fatigue and hunger—for, having lost their packs in the morning, they had no food—the surviving white men explored the scene of the fight. Jacob Farrar lay gasping his last by the edge of the water. Robert Usher and Lieutenant Robbins were unable to move. Of the thirty-four men, nine had escaped without serious injury, eleven were badly wounded, and the rest were dead or dying, except the coward who had run off. About midnight, when the moon waß up, such as had strength to walk left the ground. Robbins, as he lay helpless, asked one of them to load his gun, saying: * The Indians will come in bhe

morning to scalp me and I’ll kill another of ’em if I can.’ They loaded the gun and left him. To make one’s way even by daylight through the snares and pitfalls of a New England forest is often a difficult task ; it was trebly so in the gloom of night and over-shadowing boughs, among the fallen trees and the snarl of under-brush. Any bub the most skilful woodsmen would infallibly have lost their way. The Indians, sick of fighting, did not molest them. After struggling on for a mile or more Farwell, Frye, and two other wounded men, Josiah Jones and Elhazer .Davis, could go no further, and, with their consent, the others left them with a promise to send them help as soon as they should reach the fort. In the morning the men divided into several small parties, the better to elude pursuit. One of these parties was tracked for some time by the Indians, and Elias Barrou, becoming separated from his companions, was never heard of, though the case of his gun was afterwards found by the bank of the little river Ossipee. Eleven of the number ab length reached the fort and to their amazement found nobody there. The runaway, ) Hassell, had reached it many hours before ; them, and to excuse his flight told so frightful a story of the fate of his comrades that his hearers were seized with a panic, shamefully abandoned their post and set out for the settlements, leaving a writing on a piece of birch bark to the effect that all the rest were killed. They had left a supply of bread and pork, and while the famished eleven rested and refreshed themselves they were joined by Solomon Keyes, the man who, after feeing thrice wounded, had floated away in a canoe from the place of the fight. After drifting in a southerly direction for a considerable distance the wind blew him ashore, when, spurred by necessity and feeling himself, as he said, ‘wonderfully strengthened,’ he succeeded in reaching the fort. Meanwhile Frye, Farwell, and their two wounded companions, Davis and Jones, after waiting vainly for the expected help, found strength to struggle on again, bill the chaplain stopped, lay down, and begged the others to keep on their way, at the same time charging Davis, should he ever reach home, to tell his father that he expected in a few hours to be in eternity, and was not afraid to die.' They left him and, says the old narrative, ‘he has not been heard of since.’

Farwell died of exhaustion. The remaining two lost their way and became separated. After wandering eleven days Davis reached the fort at Lake Ossipee, and, finding food there, came into Berwick on the 27th. Jones, after fourteen days in the wood, arrived half dead at the village of Biddeford. Some of the eleven who had first reached the forb, together with Keyes, who joined them there, came into Dunstable during the night of the 13bh, and the rest follov'ed one or two days later. Ensign Wyman, who was now the only officer left alive, and who had borne himself throughout with the utmost intrepidity, decision, and good sense, reached the same place, along with three other men, on the 15bh

The runaway, Hassell, and the guard at the forb, whom he had infected with his terror, had lost no time in making their way back to Dunstable, which they seem to have reached on the evening of the 11th. Horsemen were sent in haste to carry the doleful news to Boston, on which the Governor sent orders to Colonel Tyng, of the militia, who was then ab Dunstable, to gather men in the border towns, march with all speed to the place of the fight, succour the wounded if any were still alive, and attack the Indians if he could find them. Tyng called upon Hassell to go with him as a guide, bub he was ill, or pretended to be so ; on which one of the men who bad been in the fight and had just returned offered to take his place. When the party reached the scene of the battle they saw the trees plentifully scarred with bulleps, and presently found and buried the bodies of Lovewell, Robbins and ten others. The Indians, after their usual custom, had carried off or hidden their own dead ; but Tyng’s men discovered three of them buried together, and one of these was recognised as the war chief Pangus, killed by Wyman, or, according to a doubtful tradition, by John Chamberlain.*

Nob a living Indian was to be seen. The Pequawkets were cowed by the rough handling they had met when they plainly expected a victory. Some of them joined their Abenaki kinsmen in Canada, and remained there, while others returned after the peace to their old haunts by the Saco ; bub they never again raised the hatchet againsb the English. Lovewell’s Pond, with its sandy beach, its two green islands, and its environment of lovely forests, reverted for a while to its original owners, bhe wolf, bear, lynx, and moose. In our days all is changed. Farms and dwellings possess those peaceful shores, and hard by, where ab the bend of the Saco once stood, in picturesque squalor, the wigwams of the vanished Pequawkets, the village of Fryeburg preserves the name of the brave young chaplain, whose memory is still cherished in spite of his uncanonical turns for scalping. He had betrothed himself to a young girl of Andover, whom his parents thought beneath him in position and education. She could make verses, however, no worse than many New England rhymes of that day, and she wrote an elegy on ‘ The sad and doleful Of that young student, Mr Frye, Who in his blooming youth did die; A comely youth and pious, too. This I affirm, for him I knew.’ His valour and that of his comradhs con' tributed greatly to the pacification which in the next year relieved the New England border from the scourge of Indian war. *The ballad, written just after the fight, and generally accurate in its statements, assigns the feat to Wyman : ‘ Who shot the old chief Pangus, which did the foe defeat; . _.. Then set his men in order and brought off the retre t.‘ „ Francis Parkman.