Left for Dead at Bloody Brook

"Bloody Brook Monument. South Deerfield, MA" by Tom Walsh - Own work.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

On September 17, 1675, a band of Indians attacked a train of wagons traveling from Deerfield to Hadley and loaded up with the wheat and corn harvest. This attack was part of King Philip's War. The colonists were led by Capt. Thomas Lothrop. When the news reached Deerfield, Capt. Mosely rushed to the scene with reinforcements and they engaged the Indians for about five hours with little progress. Only the arrival of Major Treat from Connecticut with his force of 100 men and 50 Mohicans turned the tide. 

From The History of Deerfield, George Sheldon, 1895:

"The soldiers crossed the brook and halted, while the teams should slowly drag their heavy loads through the mire; 'many of them,' says Mather, 'having been so foolish and secure as to put their arms in the cart and step aside to gather grapes, which proved dear and deadly grapes to them' ... 'This was a black and fatal day, wherein there was eight persons made widows, and six and twenty children made orphans, all in one little Plantation.'  Of the seventeen men of Pocumtuck who went out in the morning as teamsters, not one returned to tell the tale." 

The battle actually resulted in the deaths of between sixty and seventy men. Many were buried in a mass grave and a memorial marker was erected in Deerfield. The stream which was previously unnamed became known as Bloody Brook. 

Only a handful of men survived the attack at Bloody Brook. One of the survivors was Robert Dutch, son of Osmond Dutch and my 9X great-granduncle. 

Robert Dutch - only surviving child of Osmond Dutch's first marriage 

"As Mosely came upon the Indians in the Morning, he found them stripping the Slain, amongst whom was one Robert Dutch of Ipswich having been sorely wounded by a bullet that rased to his Skull and then mauled by the Indian Hatchets, was left for dead by the Salvages, and stript by them of all but his skin..."

In 1838, after confirming the location of the remains, a flagstone with Lothrop's name was put in place to mark the mass grave and a monument was erected nearby. Killed in the battle was my 8X great-granduncle, Joseph Balch. 

Osmond Dutch - father of Robert                         Osmond Dutch - father of Robert

Esther Dutch - half sister of Robert                     Grace Dutch - half sister of Robert
Robert Elwell                                                            Samuel Hodgkins
John Elwell                                                               Jonathan Hodgkins
Rhoda Elwell                                                             Rachel Hodgkins
Thomas Edgecomb                                                  Elizabeth Moody
Mary Edgecomb                                                       William Ackley
Benjamin Perley Philbrick                                     Sarah Ackley
Lizzie Philbrick                                                         Mary Jane Abbott
Ray Everett Cotton                                                  Fannie May Capen
Fern Lyndell Cotton - my grandmother              Thomas Richard Carter - my grandfather

John Balch
Benjamin Balch - father of Joseph Balch
Mary (Balch) Stone - sister of Joseph Balch
Ruth (Stone) Morgan
Luke Morgan
Samuel Morgan
Martha (Morgan) Yates
Moses Yates
Gilbert W. Yates
Estes G. Yates
Linona Alice Yates - my grandmother

Branded Thief - Black Sheep 52 Ancestors #20

Zaccheus Perkins was my first cousin, 9 times removed. He was the nephew of my 8th great-grandmother, Frances (Gould) Shumway. Zaccheus was the son of Thomas & Phebe (Gould) Perkins. Zaccheus fought under Capt. Joseph Gardiner in King Philip's War and was present at the Great Swamp Fight (famous for the destruction of the Indian village of Narragansett). The Perkins family was from Topsfield, Massachusetts. 




After that experience, he seems to have gone down a bad path. He got in trouble by falling in with a thief, Nicholas Jennings (described as a Frenchman he met while serving in King Philip's War). They went out drinking and Zaccheus held the horses while Jennings went off and returned with a sack of goods that he later divided and shared with Zaccheus at the shop of Mr. Thomas Maule. 

Zaccheus was also implicated in the thefts of a silver cup belonging to Mr. Joseph Whiting, a gold ring belonging to Goodman Robinson, and goods and money from a Mr. Batten. 









On May 4, 1680, Zaccheus was convicted in the thefts and sentenced to be whipped and branded on the forehead with the letter "B", also to repay Mr. Maule £250 and Mr. Batten £24. 

Frances Gould & Peter Shumway, Sr.
Peter Shumway, Jr. & Mariah Smith
Hepzibah Shumway & Obadiah Walker
Sarah Walker & Timothy Carter
Dr. Timothy Carter & Frances Freeland
Elias Mellen Carter & Rebecca Williamson
Augustus Mellen Carter & Mary Frances Stanley
Edward Mellen Carter & Fannie May Capen
Thomas Richard Carter - my grandfather

A Fresh Start - 52 Ancestors #1

Amy Johnson Crow is restarting her 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge for the New Year. This time she will provide some prompts for blog ideas. I will start off trying to use the prompts but if it becomes too burdensome to find an ancestor who fits, I'll venture off on my own tangent. I know the 52 in 52 aspect got me really back into blogging when I was flagging a bit last year. I finished with the same number of posts as the previous two years.

So prompt #1 is called "Fresh Start" and it took me a bit to find my inspiration. I actually had the next three prompts all written before this one...

"Three studies of fishermen" by William Henry Pyne,
Royal Museums Greenwich is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I settled on Nicholas Edgecomb, an early Maine settler and my 9th great-grandfather. Nicholas came to about 1638 to Richmond Island as a fisherman in the employ of Mr. Robert Trelawney. Mr. Trelawney was a merchant from Plymouth, England. Nicholas appears on the books of Mr. Trelawney off and on for the next several years. In 1640 he is found living at Blue Point on the patent of Mr. Thomas Lewis and Capt. Richard Bonython in the area now known as Scarborough, and by 1660  he had moved to Saco. Later his son, Robert, would marry the granddaughter of the patent holder, Thomas Lewis.


Nicholas Edgecomb's wife, Wilmot Randall, also had a fresh start in a new country. She came from England to work as a maid for Mistress Trelawney. In fact, she was in Maine less than a year before she married Nicholas and he had to repay her contract to the Trelawneys. According to records summarized by Walter Goodwin Davis, he paid a little over 6 pounds to the Trelawneys on her behalf.

Although they lived very modestly, Nicholas & Wilmot (Randall) Edgecomb made a fresh start and secured a life for themselves and their children on the Maine frontier. During King Philip's War all of his sons served in the garrison at Black Point (later combined with Blue Point to become Scarborough). His great-grandson, Gibbins Edgecomb served in three campaigns in the Revolutionary War at Falmouth, Maine (1776), Fishkill (1778) & West Point, New York (1778-1779).

Nicholas Edgecomb
Robert Edgecomb
Thomas Edgecomb
Gibbins Edgecomb
Thomas Edgecomb
Mary Edgecomb
Benjamin Perley Philbrick
Lizzie Philbrick
Ray Everett Cotton
Fern Lyndell Cotton - my grandmother

The Case of the Barking Dog that Saved the Garrison

My ancestor - awoken by the dog to save the garrison

For many years the settlers of Cocheco (present-day Dover, NH in the Dover Neck area) enjoyed a peaceful co-existence with the local Native Americans, the Penacook tribe. The Cocheco community was led by Richard Walderne (Waldron), who built a sawmill and later opened a trading post. Over the years there were a few minor problems, as when Walderne was charged with selling liquor to the Indians despite laws forbidding such sales. However, overall the two groups had peaceful interactions with each other. 

During King Philip's War, many Indians fled the fighting in Massachusetts and ended up in New Hampshire, living among the Penacooks. Massachusetts sent troops to round up the fleeing Indians and fearing a battle that would end the peace in Cocheco, Major Walderne arranged a trick to separate the Massachusetts Indians from the locals. The Massachusetts Indians were sent back to Boston for punishment - some were hanged and others were sold into slavery. 

Needless to say, this did not sit well with the Penacooks and the bitterness from this incident and the pressures of the colonists on Indian land kept building during the next decade. To guard the safety of the colonists, every neighborhood built a fortified blockhouse where people could go in case of attack. On the north side of the river, there were three garrisons - the homes of Richard Walderne, Richard Otis and Elizabeth Heard and on the south side the homes of Peter Coffin and his son, Tristram. These garrisons had foot-thick squared logs that bullets could not penetrate and a second story that extended over the first floor by two to three feet. In the overhang, a loose board could be pulled up so boiling water could be poured on attackers and fires could be fought as well. For additional protection, each garrison was surrounded by an 8 foot palisade. Settlers would spend each night within the protection of the garrison and kept their guns nearby during the day. 

It is now 1689... Walderne was cocky and sure they could repulse any attack. He ignored warnings and a letter from Governor Bradford giving him more specific information arrived the day after the massacre. (Maybe that's why a postal system was important enough to be provided for in the Constitution.) When several Indian women asked to spend the night in each of the garrisons, no one thought too much of it since it was a common occurrence. The settlers felt safe enough to go without a night guard and in the wee hours the women opened the gates and let in several hundred Penacooks. 

The Penacooks had special animosity towards Mr. Walderne and he suffered greatly. His ears and nose were cut off and stuck in his mouth and he was forced to fall upon his own sword. The garrison was burned to the ground and the rest of the family was taken captive. The Otis garrison fell and Otis and two of his children were killed. This garrison was also burned and his remaining family taken to Canada. 

At the Heard garrison, Elder William Wentworth was in charge since Elizabeth Heard was away. He was awakened by a barking dog and managed to close the gates and fend off the attack. The Wentworth Geneaology paints a vivid picture of this 73 year old man's heroism; "Elder Wentworth was awakened by the barking of a dog. Suspicious, he hastened to the door and found the Indians entering. Alone, and seventy-three years of age, he pushed them out, shut the door and falling on his back held it until the inmates came to his assistance. While he was lying in this position, two bullets passed through the door and over him. It was the only garrison saved. Twenty-three persons were killed and twenty-nine carried away captive."  

Signature 1654

Signature 1696

It's a colorful story, if a bit incredulous and possibly embellished by time. Evidently the settlers neglected to make the door as thick as the walls - since the walls were supposed to stop bullets from penetrating the structure. But since Elder William Wentworth is my ancestor, I am going to believe it (well mostly). It's like when someone can lift a car to save the person trapped beneath it, right? 


William Wentworth & Elizabeth
Ezekiel Wentworth & Elizabeth Knight
Tamsen Wentworth & Hezekiah Hayes
William Hayes & Olive
Isaac Hayes & Alice Garland
Richard Hayes & Rebecca
Sydney Hayes & Aphia Delphinia Cole
George H. Hayes & Anna J. Rowe
Eva Delphinia Hayes & Estes G. Yates
Linona Alice Yates - my grandmother

Sources for info and images:
The Wentworth Genealogy: English and American by John Wentworth. 1878. Accessed on openlibrary.org. 2012
http://www.dover.lib.nh.us/doverhistory/cocheco.htm